Bengaluru, July 31 (IANS) A 33-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday on the charges of posing as a CBI officer and duping people in Karnataka’s Belagavi district.

The accused, identified as Dayananda Raju Jindrale, a resident of Islampura in Hukkeri town, had been cheating youths by promising them government jobs in exchange for money.

Jindrale collected money from youths in Nippani, Rayabagh, Kagawada, Chikkodi, and Harogeri, promising them jobs in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, Forest, and Excise departments.

During a preliminary investigation, police recovered around 10-12 ATM cards from his possession.

The arrest was made after Afzal Beedi, a resident of Auto Nagar, complained to the police that Jindrale had cheated him of Rs 5 lakh and issued him cheques with different signatures.

Jindrale had taken the money claiming that his friend had met with an accident.

During police questioning, the accused confessed to other crimes.

The Malamaruthi police are investigating the case.

–IANS

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Kolkata, July 31 (IANS) An internal report of CPI(M) in West Bengal has revealed some major lapses in the organisational network, especially, at the booth level which could have led to the party’s disastrous results in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Despite the several campaign programmes held jointly with Congress with whom it had a seat-sharing agreement, the Left Front including CPI(M) ended with zero seats, while Congress could win one constituency.

Party insiders said that as per the internal organisational report findings, CPI(M) was not able to field polling agents in at least 14 per cent of the total booths in the state in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.

The report also indicates party agents leaving the counting centres during the early hours when trends started surfacing.

Party insiders further said that the internal report has also highlighted some possible reasons behind pathetic results both in the rural and urban pockets of the state. While on one hand, the increasing communication gap between peasants and sharecropper sections was the reason for the electoral disaster in the rural belts, in the case of urban pockets the apathy of educated urban middle-class Bengali society prompted that disaster, as per the findings

“For 34 years from 1977 to 2011, the peasants, working class and educated urban middle-class Bengali society had been the strong base of our party in West Bengal. It is unfortunate that we are now facing maximum erosion of support in those bases. Unless some pragmatic programmes are adopted to regain that lost dedication, times will be tougher for us in the coming days,” admitted a state committee member of the party who refused to be named.

At the same time, the internal report has also identified some tactical flaws in the party campaign strategy in the recent polls, especially the one related to different welfare schemes of the state government. Some over-enthusiastic party activists launched scathing attacks on social media describing such schemes as “petty dole projects” without realising that such schemes often have a positive impact on the financially backward sections, especially women voters.

–IANS

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Patna, July 31 (IANS) The Patna district administration has initiated a survey of the coaching institutes and discovered several fire safety violations in the Masaudhi region.

Many of these institutes operate in just two or three rooms, with only one entry and exit gate and with a lack of fire safety measures.

“The inspection, which has been ongoing since Tuesday, has revealed several irregularities in multiple coaching centres in the Masaudhi subdivision, including the absence of fire extinguishers and other safety features,” said Amit Kumar Patel, SDM of Masaudhi subdivision, Patna.

“We will submit a report to the district magistrate, who will then take appropriate action against the non-compliant institutes,” Patel said.

The Patna district administration’s survey of coaching institutes has uncovered multiple deficiencies, including inadequate registration, insufficient entry and exit doors, lack of fire safety measures, non-compliance with building by-laws, and absence of emergency services.

Many of these institutes also lack basic amenities such as toilets and drinking water facilities.

Apart from Masaudhi, deficiencies in safety parameters have been identified in coaching institutions located in Makhania Kuan, Machua Toli, Langar Loti, Ani Besant Road, Bhikhana Pahadi, Khajanchi Road, and other areas within the Patna district.

On Tuesday, a team inspected the coaching institute of prominent educationist Khan Sir and checked the registration certificate, classrooms, fire safety equipment, and emergency services. This comprehensive survey will continue for the next two weeks.

The decision to inspect these coaching institutes was made by Patna district magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh, following a tragedy at Rau IAS Study Circle in New Delhi’s Old Rajendra Nagar locality last week, which claimed three lives, including one from Bihar’s Aurangabad district.

–IANS

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Navi Mumbai, July 31 (IANS) A Panvel Court has sent Dawood M. Shaikh – the accused in the murder of a 22-year-old girl from Belapur – to police custody for seven days, an official said here on Wednesday.

Shaikh (25) who was nabbed from Gulbarga in Karnataka on July 30, and arrested for the killing of Yashashri Shinde, was produced before the Panvel Court early today which granted him a week’s police remand.

Besides murder, the police have slapped charges under the Prevention of Atrocities Against SC/ST Act against the accused, who has confessed to the crime.

The accused and victim had known each other since 2019 but the girl’s parents were against the relationship and later she also spurned him.

According to officials, the victim had gone to meet the accused in Uran where they reportedly had an altercation and he inflicted multiple stabs on her, leading to her death.

A senior officer has also denied reports in sections of the media and social networks that the victim’s body was badly mutilated by the accused and said that she died of multiple stab injuries as per the autopsy report.

The investigations have also indicated a potential ‘love triangle’ as the victim was reportedly seeing another boy which allegedly angered the accused and drove him to the crime.

Though living mostly in Karnataka, his mobile call records indicate that Shaikh had come to Navi Mumbai on July 22, and what exactly transpired between them till the girl’s murder is being probed.

The killing sparked off a huge political row with the ruling ally Bharatiya Janata Party terming it as an instance of ‘love jihad’, and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) slamming the MahaYuti for the collapse of law-and-order in the state.

Several MVA bigwigs like Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Leader of Opposition in Council Ambadas Danve, Kishori Pednekar, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and Congress leaders visited the distraught kin of the victim and assured full support in their quest for justice.

The Maharashtra State Commission for Women Chairperson Rupali Chakankar, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray’s wife Sharmila Thackeray and other leaders also met the victim’s family and consoled them, while asking the police to ensure stringent action against the accused.

Angered by the murder, Uran people have taken out protest marches in the past few days while the Shinde family has demanded the death sentence for their daughter’s killer.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 31 (IANS) The Lok Sabha proceedings on Wednesday were marked by repeated chaos and disruption as the Opposition members resorted to slogan-shouting. Miffed over BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s caste jibe at the Leader of the Lok Sabha in the House, the opposition benches chanted slogans like ‘have shame,’ ‘Modi sarkar saamne aao,’ (Modi government come forward) and others.

On Tuesday, while addressing the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Anurag Thakur said those “whose caste is unknown” should not talk about census.

“Some people talk about OBCs, but for them (the Congress), OBC stands for ‘only for brother-in-law commission’. This party will talk about other backward castes?” the BJP MP said on Tuesday.

The slogan-shouting continued even when Congress MP from Gadchiroli, Kirsan Namdeo, asked Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia a question, leading to a significant disruption of the proceedings.

Criticising the Opposition for creating a ruckus and disrupting the House proceedings by raising slogans, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said, “This is not the right way. A person from your faction is raising a question, and you are not letting them speak?”

“You cannot stop someone from your own side from speaking. Everyone has the right to raise the issues of their areas,” the Lok Sabha Speaker added.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also slammed the Opposition’s actions, specifically targeting the Congress and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi.

He stated, “The Congress party always talks about caste all the time, but not about how they have weakened this country by raising questions on our Indian Army, demotivating them and working just to weaken the nation.”

–IANS

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