Gauri Lankesh murder: SIT arrests man for giving false statement
Bengaluru, July 26: The SIT officials arrested a person on charges of giving false statement to the investigating officials in Gauri Lankesh murder case. The arrested is identified as H L Suresh (36) of Herur in Kunigal taluk in Tumkuru district.
It is said that Suresh had rented a house to the main accused in Gauri Lankesh murder case- Amol Kale, Parashuram Waghmore and Praveen Kumar at Sunkadakatte in Bengaluru. But when the investigating officers interrogated the owner of the house, he said that he had rented his house for those who came seeing the advertisement and he did not know much information about the accused. But when the investigation was intensified, it came to light that Suresh himself had given shelter to the accused in his house.
Before killing Gauri Lankesh, Suresh had provided shelter to all the accused. Accused Parashuram Waghmore had revealed this to the investigating officers during interrogation. Based on this clue, the SIT officials arrested Suresh in Tumkur on Wednesday.
11th accused
With the arrest of Suresh, the number of accused arrested in the case has gone up to 11. So far, 10 accused including Amol Kale, Parashuram Waghmore, Naveen Kumar, Mohan Nayak, Rajesh Bangera and others were arrested.
After arresting Suresh, the SIT officials produced him before the Third ACMM court on Thursday and he was remanded to judicial custody.
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Supreme Court rejects plea for reverting to ballots in elections
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to revert to ballot paper voting in elections in the country.
"What happens is, when you win the election, EVMs (electronic voting machine) are not tampered. When you lose the election, EVMs are tampered (with)," remarked a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale.
Apart from ballot paper voting, the plea sought several directions including a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify candidates for a minimum of five years if found guilty of distributing money, liquor or other material inducement to the voters during polls.
When petitioner-in-person K A Paul said he filed the PIL, the bench said, "You have interesting PILs. How do you get these brilliant ideas?".
The petitioner said he is the president of an organisation which has rescued over three lakh orphans and 40 lakh widows.
"Why are you getting into this political arena? Your area of work is very different," the bench retorted.
After Paul revealed he had been to over 150 countries, the bench asked him whether each of the nations had ballot paper voting or used electronic voting.
The petitioner said foreign countries had adopted ballot paper voting and India should follow suit.
"Why you don't want to be different from the rest of the world?" asked the bench.
There was corruption and this year (2024) in June, the Election Commission announced they had seized Rs 9,000 crore, Paul responded.
"But how does that make your relief which you are claiming here relevant?" asked the bench, adding "if you shift back to physical ballot, will there be no corruption?".
Paul claimed CEO and co-founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, stated that EVMs could be tampered with and added TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, the current chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, and former state chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had claimed EVMs could be tampered with.
"When Chandrababu Naidu lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with. Now this time, Jagan Mohan Reddy lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with," noted the bench.
When the petitioner said everybody knew money was distributed in elections, the bench remarked, "We never received any money for any elections."
The petitioner said another prayer in his plea was the formulation of a comprehensive framework to regulate the use of money and liquor during election campaigns and ensuring such practices were prohibited and punishable under the law.
The plea further sought a direction to mandate an extensive voter education campaign to raise awareness and importance of informed decision making.
"Today, 32 per cent educated people are not casting their votes. What a tragedy. If democracy will be dying like this and we will not be able to do anything then what will happen in the years to come in future," the petitioner said.
