India cricketer Rinku Singh receives underworld threat: Mumbai Crime Branch confirms
Mumbai: Indian cricketer and 2025 Asia Cup champion Rinku Singh has reportedly received a threat from the underworld, according to the Mumbai Crime Branch. The investigation has revealed that Dawood Ibrahim-led D-Company sent multiple ransom demands earlier this year.
Authorities confirmed that between February and April 2025, Rinku’s promotional team received three extortion messages demanding ₹5 crore. Acting on the leads, police arrested two suspects, Mohammed Dilshad and Mohammed Naveed, from the Caribbean. The duo was extradited and handed over to Indian authorities on August 1.
Investigators further discovered that the accused had also demanded ₹10 crore from Zeeshan Siddiqui, son of the late former MLA Baba Siddiqui. During interrogation, one of the arrested suspects reportedly admitted to contacting Rinku Singh’s team for ransom.
Rinku, who hails from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, rose to national prominence after his five consecutive sixes in an IPL 2023 match against Gujarat Titans. He made his India debut in 2024 and played a decisive role in the 2025 Asia Cup final against Pakistan, hitting the winning runs that secured India’s ninth title.
The left-handed batter, currently representing Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), has played 54 T20Is for India, amassing 550 runs at a strike rate of 161.77. In the IPL, he has appeared in 58 matches, scoring 1,099 runs, and was part of KKR’s 2024 title-winning squad.
Recently engaged to MP Priya Saroj, Rinku is expected to feature in India’s upcoming white-ball tour of Australia, which includes five T20 Internationals.
Police investigations into the underworld threat are ongoing.
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ASHA workers threaten indefinite strike from Feb 27 over rationalisation order, pending demands
Bengaluru: ASHA workers in Karnataka have warned of launching an indefinite strike from February 27, protesting a health department order to rationalise the workforce and alleging that long-pending demands have not been addressed.
The Karnataka State Joint ASHA Workers’ Association criticised the department’s decision to increase the population assigned to each ASHA worker, arguing that it violates existing norms and would lead to large-scale job losses. According to current norms, one ASHA worker is assigned for every 1,000 individuals. Under the current rationalisation plan, the allotted population in rural regions has been increased to up to 2,000, while in metropolitan areas with populations more than 50,000, the number has been raised from 1,000 to a minimum of 2,500 and a maximum of 3,000.
Deccan Herald quoted D Nagalakshmi, state secretary of the ASHA Union affiliated to AITUC, as saying the department had conveyed that an honorarium of ₹10,000 could not be ensured unless the population coverage per worker was increased. She alleged that workers were effectively being asked to accept higher workloads while excess ASHAs would be removed. “This would render nearly 7,000 to 8,000 ASHA workers jobless, and such a move is being carried out only in Karnataka,” she said.
At present, the state government pays ASHA workers a monthly honorarium of ₹5,000, while the Centre provides performance-based incentives. Workers said accessing these incentives has become difficult as data must be entered on the ASHA portal by primary health community officers, but vacancies in these posts have not been filled.
The workers have also submitted a set of pre-Budget demands, seeking an increase in the combined state and central incentives to ₹15,000 and enhancement of the state honorarium to ₹ 8,000, in line with promises made in the Congress election manifesto. Other demands include a lump-sum retirement benefit on the lines of West Bengal, creation of a corpus fund to meet treatment expenses of ASHA workers suffering from serious illnesses with reimbursement provisions, and payment of a fixed monthly honorarium for up to three months during recovery from severe illness.
ASHA workers had staged an indefinite protest in January over similar issues. On the fourth day of the agitation, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah intervened and assured the workers that their demands would be met.
