Farmers' Long March: Sharad Pawar, Anna Hazare flay BJP
Mumbai/Ahmednagar: Former union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and social crusader Anna Hazare on Monday strongly criticized the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and in Maharashtra for letting down the farmers.
Speaking to the media in Mumbai and Ralegan-Siddhi (Ahmednagar), the two senior leaders asked why over 30,000 farmers were compelled to march nearly 200 km from Nashik to Mumbai for six days if the government was serious about accepting their demands.
"Why could the state government not depute a team to Nashik to discuss the grievances of the farmers and resolve it? Its four years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, but the promises of minimum support price for farm produce has not been implemented," Pawar said.
"The farmers' demands are just and the government must take immediate steps to resolve them. It is condemnable that farmers in an agrarian economy like India were forced to resort to a Long March for redressal of their demands," Hazare said.
Pawar warned that if the demands were not conceded, "the fire of the farmers' ire will spread from all over Maharashtra to all over India," while Hazare said "wait and see how many people come for my agitation in Delhi from March 23."
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7 held for running fake call centre in South Kolkata
Kolkata (PTI): Seven people were arrested from the Parnashree area in the southern part of the city for allegedly running a fake call centre, a police officer said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip-off, police raided a house on Netaji Subhas Road on Friday night and found the fake call centre operating from the ground floor, he said.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused had set up a bogus company using forged documents and posed as employees of an antivirus firm to call citizens in the US, the officer said.
"The callers would gain the trust of victims and then use remote access to take control of their phones or other digital devices. The accused allegedly siphoned off large sums of money, running into millions of dollars, from victims' accounts," he said.
Five laptops, two WiFi routers, six mobile phones and four headsets were seized from the accused, he said, adding that the seven are being questioned to ascertain the full extent of the racket and to identify others involved.
