Cong leader B K Hariprasad alleges "match fixing" between Modi and Imran Khan on Pulwama attack
Bengaluru, Mar 7: Sparking a major row, senior Congress leader B K Hariprasad Thursday alleged there was a "match fixing" between prime minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan on the Pulwama terror attack.
"There is a match fixing between Narendra Modi and Imran Khan, or else this Pulwama incident would not have taken place," Prasad, a Rajya Sabha member, told reporters here.
BJP in Karnataka sharply reacted to Hariprasad's charge, calling it irresponsible and saying he should be ashamed of making such statements.
Hariprasad's comments came while reacting to union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the "stolen" Rafale papers.
Earlier in the day, Gandhi asked why a probe cannot be ordered against Modi for a "Rs 30,000-crore scam" when an investigation has been initiated into the theft of official documents related to the fighter jet deal.
Hitting back, Prasad said: "I totally condemn blatant lies of Rahul Gandhi. He does not believe the Indian Air Force, does not trust the Supreme Court verdict that clearly said there is no commercial impropriety in the (Rafale) procurement process. He does not believe the CAG."
Coming down on the union government, Hariprasad sought to know how the huge cache of RDX went undetected when the government agencies could find beef at different places.
"People who talk about the security of the nation, they can detect two kg of beef from Akhlaq's house, they can detect two kg of beef in Kerala guest house, they can't detect 350 kg of RDX on the national highway. It's a shame on them," he said.
BJP state general secretary and MLC N Ravikumar slammed Hariprasad for his remarks.
"This is a highly condemnable, irresponsible statement.
He should be ashamed of making such statements. Where had he mortgaged his brain before making such a statement," he said.
He blamed the Congress for terrorism in the country.
Forty CRPF jawans were killed in a suicide attack carried on their convoy in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14, for which Pakistan based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed had claimed responsibility.
Indian Air Force had carried out pre-emptive strikes on the training camps of terrorists inside the Pakistan soil.
The attack had escalated tension between Pakistan and India.
Hariprasad is not new to controversies. Earlier in January, he had mocked BJP national president Amit Shah's illness when the latter was admitted to the AIIMS for contracting H1N1.
Addressing a meeting here, Prasad had said in Kannada that Amit Shah got the 'swine flu' because he tried to destabilise the Congress-JDS coalition government in Karnataka.
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MP cruise boat tragedy: Search ops expanded to trace four missing passengers
Jabalpur (PTI): Army divers and disaster response teams on Saturday expanded their search at Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh to locate a man and three children still missing after the cruise boat tragedy that claimed nine lives two days ago, officials said.
With 28 of the 41 identified passengers onboard the ill-fated cruise boat rescued safely, police are preparing to register an FIR in connection with the accident that occurred at the reservoir in Jabalpur district on Thursday evening, they said.
The search radius has been expanded to 5 km in the backwaters of the Bargi Dam, located downstream of the Narmada River, area sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI.
Nine people drowned in the incident, while 28 were rescued, and efforts are ongoing to trace the missing persons, he said.
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According to the police, more than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, began the search operation at 5 am on Saturday to trace Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, his son Tamil (5), Vijay Soni (6) and Mayuram (5).
Mishra said that an inquest case has been registered and the post-mortem of nine deceased persons has been completed.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will soon register an FIR," he said.
Investigators have said that CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the ill-fated boat, and the names of 41 persons, who boarded the vessel, have been ascertained so far.
Collector Raghvendra Singh confirmed that a search is underway for four missing persons.
The rescue operation, being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local divers, was briefly affected around 9 am due to strong winds.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members after survivors alleged negligence and safety lapses, including failure to provide life jackets.
The government also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, sank during a sudden storm around 6 pm on Thursday, and the wreckage was retrieved from the dam water on Friday, after the rescuers confirmed that there were no more bodies inside.
Eyewitnesses have said that strong winds made the water choppy, prompting passengers to raise an alarm and ask the crew to steer the vessel towards the riverbank.
A survivor alleged negligence by the crew and described a last-minute scramble for life jackets.
