Cong will try to build Ram temple if elected to power, says Harish Rawat
Dehradun, Feb 22: Describing Congress as the only party which had taken serious steps in the past towards construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, AICC general secretary Harish Rawat said Friday that the party will try its best to fulfill the demand if it comes to power at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls.
"My statement on Ayodhya is already in public domain. I have been saying that if elected to power at the Centre, the congress will try its best to build a Ram temple there. My stand on the issue should also be considered as the party's view," Rawat said at a press conference here.
He said even senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had acknowledged the fact during an interaction with him that it was the Congress which had made serious efforts towards construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya twice while in power.
Accusing the BJP of doing politics over the issue, he said the Centre should play the role of facilitator on the construction of a temple.
Targeting the BJP over the Pulwama terror attack, Rawat said the saffron party was giving the tag of being a nationalist only to Prime Minister Narendra Modi which was wrong.
"Why is only Prime Minister Modi being reckoned as a nationalist. I have strong objection to it. Every citizen of India is a nationalist. I am also a nationalist and so are you," he said, adding that the entire nation stands together over the martyrdom of the soldiers.
Reacting to the budget for Uttarakhand tabled by the state government, the former chief minister expressed disappointment over it saying there was nothing new in it except that some old proposals moved by his government had been incorporated into it under new names.
He said the scheme of reviving NGOs which was introduced during his tenure has been incorporated into the budget under the name of Deendayal Upadhyay.
"I want to ask how many NGOs the BJP government has revived during its tenure which was the main objective of the scheme," he said.
"Growth rate is racing up like the bullet train but agricultural growth rate is at its lowest which is a matter of concern," he said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
CBI chargesheets 4 Chinese behind Rs 1,000 cr cyber crime racket; 111 shell companies unmasked
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has filed a chargesheet against 17 people, including four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies for their alleged roles in a transnational cyber fraud network that siphoned off over Rs 1,000 crore through a sprawling web of shell entities and digital scams, officials said on Sunday.
After busting the racket in October, investigators unravelled a single, tightly coordinated syndicate that relied on an elaborate digital and financial infrastructure to run a range of frauds. These included misleading loan applications, fake investment schemes, Ponzi and multi-level marketing models, bogus part-time job offers and fraudulent online gaming platforms.
According to the probe agency's final report, the group layered the flow of illicit funds through 111 shell companies, routing about Rs 1,000 crore via mule accounts. One account received more than Rs 152 crore in a short span.
The shell companies, the CBI said, were incorporated using dummy directors, forged or misleading documents, fake addresses and false statements of business objectives.
"These shell entities were used to open bank accounts and merchant accounts with various payment gateways, enabling rapid layering and diversion of proceeds of crime," a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
Investigators traced the origins of the scam to 2020, when the country was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. The shell companies were allegedly incorporated at the direction of four Chinese handlers -- Zou Yi, Huan Liu, Weijian Liu and Guanhua Wang.
Their Indian associates procured identity documents from unsuspecting individuals, which were then used to establish the network of shell companies and mule accounts to launder proceeds from the scams and obscure the money trail.
The investigation exposed communication links and operational control that, the agency said, nailed the role of Chinese masterminds running the fraud network from abroad.
"Significantly, a UPI ID linked to the bank accounts of two Indian accused was found to be active in a foreign location as late as August 2025, conclusively establishing continued foreign control and real-time operational oversight of the fraud infrastructure from outside India," the CBI statement said.
The probe found that the racketeers employed a highly layered, technology-driven modus operandi, using Google advertisements, bulk SMS campaigns, SIM-box-based messaging systems, cloud infrastructure, fintech platforms and multiple mule bank accounts.
"Each stage of the operation -- from luring victims to collection and movement of funds -- was deliberately structured to conceal the identities of the actual controllers and evade detection by law enforcement agencies," the spokesperson said.
The chargesheet names 17 individuals, including the four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies.
The investigation was launched on the inputs from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which flagged large-scale cheating of citizens through online investment and employment schemes, resulting in the arrest of three individuals in October.
"Though initially appearing as isolated complaints, detailed analysis by CBI revealed striking similarities in applications used, fund-flow patterns, payment gateways and digital footprints, pointing towards a common organised conspiracy," the agency said.
Following the October arrests, the CBI conducted searches at 27 locations across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Haryana, seizing digital devices, documents and financial records that were later subjected to detailed forensic examination.
