Mangaluru: Cops nab 6 near beach, thwart murder and robbery plots

Bengaluru, Jun 26: Karnataka recorded 445 new Covid cases, majority of whom were contacts of earlier positive cases, breaching the 11,000 mark to settle at 11,005, an official said on Friday.

"New cases reported from Thursday 5 p.m. to Friday 5 p.m., 445," said a health official on Friday.

In the past 24 hours, 10 patients succumbed to the virus in Karnataka, three in Bengaluru Urban and one each in Kolar, Dharwad, Shivamogga, Bagalkote, Bidar, Kalaburagi and Ballari.

Like everyday, contacts of earlier cases outnumbered domestic returnees in the number of infections, constituting 39 per cent.

Positive cases with domestic travel history numbered 65, a mere 15 per cent and majority to Maharashtra.

There were also 21 cases with international travel history to countries like Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

On Friday, cases spiked in Bengaluru Urban, Ballari, Kalaburagi, Koppal, Dakshina Kannada, Dharwad, Raichur, Gadag, Chamarajanagar, Udupi, Yadgir, Mandya, Uttara Kannada, Bagalkote, Shivamogga, Kolar and Mysuru.

Among the new cases, Bengaluru Urban accounted for 144, followed by Ballari (47), Kalaburagi (42), Koppal (36), Dakshina Kannada (33), Dharwad (30), Raichur (14), Gadag (12), Chamarajanagar (11), Udupi (9), Yadgir (7), Mandya, Uttara Kannada, Bagalkote, Shivamogga and Kolar (6 each).

Mysuru (5), Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu (4 each), Hassan and Bengaluru Rural (3 each), Vijayapura, Tumkur and Haveri (2 each) and Bidar, Belagavi, Davangere, Ramanagara and Chitradurga (1 each).

As many 144 patients are suffering from Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and 19 from Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI).

In all, 5.68 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 5.41 lakh tested negative.

Meanwhile, 178 patients are admitted in the ICU.

Of the total 180 deaths, Bengaluru Urban has accounted for 81, followed by Bidar (16), Kalaburagi (15), Ballari (9) and Dakshina Kannada (8), among others.

Bengaluru, Feb 14: In a major embarrassment to the police, the Karnataka High Court has termed as illegal the prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of CrPC by the City Police Commissioner in December 2019 in the light of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Bengaluru.

The orders were passed “without application of mind” and without following due procedures, the court noted. Giving reasons for upholding the arguments of the petitioners that there was no application of mind by the Police Commissioner (Bhaskar Rao) before imposing restrictions, a division bench of the High Court said he had not recorded the reasons, except reproducing the contents of letters addressed to him by the Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs). 

The state government had contended that prohibitory orders were passed based on reports submitted by the DCPs who expressed apprehension about anti-social elements creating law and order problems and damaging public property by taking advantage of the anti-CAA protests.  

The High Court bench said the Police Commissioner should have conducted inquiry as stated by the Supreme Court to check the reasons cited by the DCPs who submitted identical reports. Except for this, there were no facts laid out by the Police Commissioner, the court said.

“There is complete absence of reasons. If the order indicated that the Police Commissioner was satisfied by the apprehension of DCPs, it would have been another matter,” it said.  

“The apex court has held that it must record the reasons for imposition of restrictions and there has to be a formation of opinion by the district magistrate. Only then can  the extraordinary powers conferred on the district magistrate can be exercised. This procedure was not followed. Hence, exercise of power under Section 144 by the commissioner, as district magistrate, was not at all legal”, the bench said. 

“We hold that the order dated December 18, 2019 is illegal and cannot stand judicial scrutiny in terms of the apex court’s orders in the Ramlila Maidan case and Anuradha Bhasin case,” the HC bench said while upholding the arguments of Prof Ravivarma Kumar, who appeared for some of the petitioners.   

Partly allowing a batch of public interest petitions questioning the imposition of prohibitory orders and cancelling the permission granted for protesters in the city, the bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar observed that, unfortunately, in the present case, there was no indication of application of mind in passing prohibitory orders.

The bench said the observation was confined to this order only and it cannot be applicable in general. If there is a similar situation (necessitating imposition of restrictions), the state is not helpless, the court said.

Mangaluru, Apr 21: An elderly woman from Bantwal taluk in Dakshina Kannada district has been diagnosed with covid-19, a deadly disease caused by coronavirus.

The state health and family welfare department, in its bulletin released on Tuesday morning, confirmed  that 67-year old woman suffering from covid-19.

The woman is said to be a neighbour of the woman from who died last Friday after being infected with coronavirus.

It is suspected that the virus reached elderly woman's body as she was in touch with the deceased.

The woman was admitted to Covid - 19 Hospital, Mangaluru, on the April 18 after she developed breathing problem. It is learnt that she is responding to the treatment