Cong extends Karnataka poll campaign to Saudi Arabia; leaders reach out to NRIs

Kalaburagi, May 16: Former Karnataka Minister Dr Sharanprakash Patil, who was booked for violating COVID-19 imposed lockdown guidelines said on Friday that it was "politically motivated".

"It's politically motivated, the officer who filed the case was forced by MLA or some other people. As elected representatives, we're going in the constituencies, listening to people as they're apprehensive about the return of migrants. We had not conducted any meeting. Wherever we have gone we have followed social distancing," Patil said.

Patil said, "When I had gone there people came to discuss about a local problem and I was talking to an official concerned. In the meantime, some officer gave a complaint that we have violated the lockdown or something."

"They are trying to curb the voice of opposition because there are a lot of lacunae. We hear complaints about quarantine centres that there is no proper facility for food, or stay, or bathrooms," the Congress leader said.

The FIR was registered on Thursday against 23 persons, including the former MLA and 21 local Congress leaders, under Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Congress leader Patil and his followers had conducted a meeting at a convention hall in Sulpeth town on May 13, following which sectoral magistrate Muneer Ahmed lodged a complaint.

Bengaluru, May 14: Reformed underworld don Muthappa Rai, who was battling cancer for the past year, was said to be in a critical condition at Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru, late Wednesday night. Doctors said he was on life-support at the time of going to press. Rai (68), realtor, entrepreneur and founder of pro-Kannada organisation Jaya Karnataka, had retired from public life after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was part of an ongoing investigation into gangster Ravi Pujari, who was extradited from Senegal recently.

Born in Puttur into a Bunt family, he started out as a bank employee in Bengaluru, and later ran a live band restaurant. In 1994, he was shot in a Bengaluru court by a man dressed as a lawyer, after which he was bedridden for a couple of years.

Rai Moved to Dubai in 1996. He was deported from the UAE to India in 2002, and was arrested in Bengaluru when HT Sangliana was the police commissioner. Both Rai and Pujari had allegedly been associated with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.