Ex-minister Ramanath Rai hits out at BJP leader Ashoka for ‘irresponsible’ comments on KC Venugopal
Mangaluru: Congress leader and former minister B Ramanath Rai slammed BJP leader R Ashoka for calling AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal an agent of the party high command, and asked if the general secretary and other office-bearers in the BJP were commission agents too.
Rai, who addressed a press meet at the Congress office in the city on Friday, expressed fury over the recent comments of the BJP leader that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was presenting himself in a shameless manner in public life. Ashoka, who is also Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, had said that the Congress government had ‘broken every previous record on corruption-related controversies’.
“Ashoka has spoken with sheer ignorance and displays his lack of maturity, as he often does while facing the media. KC Venugopal has been working at organization of the party and it is unbecoming of Ashoka to criticize Venugopal as he did,” Rai told reporters.
“Being in a responsible position, how acceptable is it for Ashoka to pass disrespectful, random comments about another leader who also holds a responsible position? If KC Venugopal is indeed an agent of the party high command, what should we consider BJP leaders to be? Are they brokers?” he asked
Commenting on Ashoka’s allegations of corruption in the Congress government in Karnataka, Rai pointed out, “The KSRTC land was sold to private parties when he (Ashoka) was transport minister. We can find several such cases across the state, which need to be probed.”
The former minister, however, refused to comment on the incident that occurred at Mangaluru airport during CM Siddaramaiah’s visit to the city recently.
Former mayors Ashraf and Shashidhar Hegde, Congress activists Vishwas Kumar Das, Subhodaya Alva, Shabeer, Baby Kundar, Padmanabha, Nazeer Bajal and Prem were present.
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Three arrested in Gurugram for aiding Chinese cyber fraud syndicate
Gurugram (PTI): The Gurugram Cyber Police has arrested three men for allegedly providing calling support to a Chinese fraud syndicate, officials said on Wednesday.
According to the officials, a 20-port physical SIM box and a laptop were seized from them. These arrests come after a woman from Nagaland was held in connection with the same case.
The arrested accused have been identified as Karma (32) from Nagaland, and Lobsang Tsultim (33) and Ngawang Gyaltsen (35), both from Himachal Pradesh. Karma and Tsultim were arrested on February 14. Gyaltsen was intercepted on February 16 near Majnu Ka Tila in Delhi while attempting to flee to Nepal.
Police said the accused, during questioning, revealed that they were using SIM boxes to facilitate fraudulent calls targeting Indian citizens.
Karma and Lobsang Tsultim admitted to installing virtual SIM boxes in Gurugram on the instructions of a Chinese national named Tsega, they said.
These setups, which included 20 mobile phones, were capable of making over 20,000 calls a day. Tsega, allegedly used an application to contact Indian citizens for various crimes, including gaming and investment fraud, they said.
Tsultim and Gyaltsen were born in China and have lived in India as refugees for 15 years. Fluent in Chinese and Taiwanese, they communicated with Tsega via WeChat, a platform banned in India since 2020, they added.
ACP Cyber Priyanshu Dewan said the three accused were produced in court on Wednesday and have been sent to judicial custody.
"We are working to identify others involved in the network," he added.
