Chartered flight by SAQCO lands in Mangaluru with 175 stranded Kannadigas from KSA
Mangaluru: The special chartered flight arranged by SAQCO Contracting Company’s Althaf Ullal and Basheer Sagar from Dammam International Airport landed at the Mangaluru International Airport in the wee hours of Thursday with 175 stranded Kannadigas from Saudi Arabia.
The special chartered flight was arranged to repatriate Kannadigas stranded in the kingdom due to the Corona lockdown. The businessmen duo of Althaf Ullal and Basheer Sagar the Directors of SAQCO Company borne the expenses of the flight along with the cost of institutional quarantine at Mangaluru of passengers and their COVID-19 tests here.
The company informed that it received over 500 applications in only three days from stranded Kannadigas in the kingdom for the repatriation. However, while making the final list of 175 passengers that would take the flight, priority was given to pregnant women, people with medical emergencies, senior citizens who had arrived in KSA on visit visas, and those who had to visit families in India after their families reported deaths.
The company in a release added that the flight which landed here at 01:15 am had 55 pregnant women, 20 people with medical emergencies, 61 senior citizens, 35 children/infants, and four people who had to come to India due to their parent’s death.
Notably, the chartered flight has no employee, staff, or official of SAQCO Company flying back to India, and the service was arranged only for those in need of repatriation for genuine reasons. Earlier, noted companies like ‘Expertise’ and Al-Muzain had repatriated their employees on chartered flights from Saudi.
Emotional scenes at Dammam International Airport:
Ahead of the take-off of the flight from Dammam International Airport on Wednesday evening, people at the airport witnessed emotional scenes as the 175 passengers could not hide their emotions on finally being able to start the journey back to their homes.
Basheer Sagar added that he was delighted to see the people smiling and rejoicing the moment and said that it gave them a sense of satisfaction to be able to have helped so many people in reuniting them with their families who were stranded and were in distress for over three months away from home.
Basheer also lauded the efforts of two teams of 20 people who he said had worked a day in and day out to make this a successful operation. He added that at least 30 passengers required wheelchairs at the airport and the team arranged it for them while also ensuring that all the 175 passengers’ procedures are carried smoothly without any inconvenience.
He later added that officials at the Dammam International Airport were also amused with the emotional scenes at the airport.
Move applauded on social media:
The move by Althaf and Basheer to repatriate Kannadigas in distress is being lauded across social media platforms. Several people applauded their gesture of bringing back 175 people who were in distress, back to their homes and carrying out one of its kind operations during the Corona lockdown wherein only people in genuine need were brought back and no employee, staff or official from their own company was traveling on the flight.
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Chhattisgarh coal levy scam: Rs 4 crore assets of suspended IAS officer attached
Raipur (PTI): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has attached properties of Rs 4 crore belonging to suspended IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, an accused in a coal levy scam, for allegedly amassing assets beyond his known sources of income, officials said.
The EOW had registered a disproportionate assets case against Vishnoi in July 2024, an official release said on Saturday.
During the investigation, the agency identified nine immovable properties, valued at around Rs 4 crore, allegedly acquired through illicit means in the names of Vishnoi’s family members and associated firms, it said.
“An application seeking attachment of these properties was filed before the Special Court under the Prevention of Corruption Act in Raipur. Following a hearing on April 17, the court ordered attachment of all such properties,” the statement said.
Accordingly, the Anti-Corruption Bureau/Economic Offences Wing attached the properties. The attached properties cannot be sold or transferred, it said.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier provisionally attached five immovable properties linked to Vishnoi in connection with the coal levy scam, it added.
Proceedings are also underway in cases involving other public servants, including action taken in September last year against properties linked to Saumya Chaurasia, who was deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office during the Congress government, the statement said.
Vishnoi, a 2009-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, was first arrested in 2022 by the ED in connection with the alleged coal levy scam. He was among several accused who were granted bail last year by the Supreme Court.
The case refers to an alleged Rs 540 crore racket between July 2020 and June 2022, when an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was being extorted by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen for every tonne of coal transported in the state.
