Mangaluru: The Vittal Police have registered a case after unidentified fraudsters allegedly swapped an ATM card of a man at a kiosk and withdrew Rs 1.19 lakh from his wife’s bank account.

According to the complaint filed by Damodar Poojary, a resident of Urimajalu, Idkidu village in Bantwal taluk, the incident occurred at an ATM in Vittal Kasaba. Damodar, who regularly withdraws money from his wife Geetha’s account due to her ill health, had gone to the ATM to make a transaction. After withdrawing Rs 6,000, he stepped out of the kiosk, as reported by Deccan Herald. 

At that moment, two unidentified men, who were inside the kiosk, called him back and, speaking in Hindi, told him that the ATM machine had not been properly closed. Trusting them, Damodar re-entered the kiosk to check the machine. When he returned, the men claimed that his ATM card had been mixed up with another one and handed him a card in exchange, while secretly keeping his original card.

Later that night, Damodar received alerts on his phone, notifying him that Rs 1.19 lakh had been withdrawn from his wife’s account without his knowledge. Realising that he had been duped, he approached the Vittal Police Station and filed a complaint, added the report.

The police have registered a case under Sections 318(2), 318(4) read with 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023.

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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.