Onions worth Rs 1 lakh stolen from farmer's store house in Maharashtra
Nashik, Sep 24: Amid the spiralling onion prices, a farmer in Maharashtra's Nashik district has complained that his stock of the key kitchen staple worth around Rs 1 lakh has been stolen by unidentified persons, police said on Tuesday.
Onion grower Rahul Bajirao Pagar approached the police on Monday, saying he had kept a 'summer stock' of 25 tonne onions in 117 plastic crates at his store house in Kalwan taluka, police inspector Pramod Wagh said.
However, on Sunday evening, he found the entire stock worth nearly Rs 1 lakh missing, Pagar said in the complaint.
Based on his complaint, a case of theft has been registered and search is on for his stock in local markets as well as in neighbouring Gujarat, Wagh said.
The summer onion stocks are being auctioned at the Agriculture Produce MarketCommittee (APMC) here for around Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,000 per quintal (per 100 kg), a source said.
Meanwhile in another incident, some unidentified persons allegedly mixed urea (fertiliser) in the onion stock of farmer Vishnu Aher in Bhaur village, an official at Devla police station said.
The farmer in his complaint alleged that the mischief resulted in rotting of about 120 tonnes of his onions worth Rs 5 lakh, he said.
Retail prices of onion have shot up to Rs 70 to Rs 80 per kg in New Delhi and other parts of the country owing to supply disruption in the wake of excess monsoon rains in major growing states, according to sources.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
