Karnataka: BJP-Congress trade charges after recovery of Rs 10.5 lakh cash
Bengaluru (PTI): A war of words broke out between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in Karnataka over the recovery of Rs 10.5 lakh unaccounted cash from a Public Works Department engineer at Vidhana Soudha on Thursday evening.
While the Congress alleged that the Vidhana Soudha has become a shopping mall and the BJP stood for 'Broker Janata Party,' Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai reminded the opposition how Rs 25 lakh cash was allegedly seized from the staff of Congress MLA from Chamarajanagar C Puttarangashetty four years ago.
The security personnel at Vidhana Soudha held the PWD engineer Jagadish on Thursday with the cash. After he failed to give any satisfactory reply, the security personnel handed over the cash to the Cubbon Park police.
The policemen waited for some time allowing the engineer to furnish details but after he failed, he was arrested on Thursday night.
The recovery of cash led to a political storm in the poll-bound Karnataka with the opposition and the ruling parties trading charges against each other.
Former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah charged that the engineer might have come to pay it to the Chief Minister or the PWD Minister C C Patil.
"Bribery is going on in the Vidhana Soudha. It is happening right under the nose of Chief Minister. Whom did he come to pay? He might have come to pay the CM or the PWD Minister," Siddaramaiah said.
The Congress state president D K Shivakumar said the incident proved once again that nothing moves in the Vidhana Soudha without paying a bribe.
"No bills are getting cleared without paying 40 per cent or 50 per cent bribe. They (ruling BJP) ask for evidence when we accuse them of collecting 40 per cent commission. Isn't this incident a proof?" Shivakumar said.
Congress MLA and party national president Mallikarjun Kharge's son Priyank Kharge held a press conference alleging that the BJP does not mean Bharatiya Janata Party anymore.
"It is not Bharatiya Janata Party anymore. The BJP today has become Brokers' Janata Party. This Broker Janata Party has turned the pious Vidhana Soudha into 'Vyapara Soudha' (Business Palace). It has become world's biggest shopping mall," Kharge alleged.
In this shopping mall people can purchase the jobs of police sub-inspectors, assistant engineer and assistant professors. "All the government jobs are on sale here. Our top officials, ministers and the MLAs are the best salesmen here. They are all members of the Broker Janata Party," Kharge charged.
Hitting back, Bommai said the staff of a Congress MLA Puttarangashetty too was caught with cash.
"I would like to ask Siddaramaiah about Rs 25 lakh found from the office of Putarangashetty. What action did you take?
Did you arrest the man who brought it or whom it was paid to or did you sack the minister? You are the one who had shut the Lokayukta office," the Chief Minister alleged.
He said a probe has been ordered and the truth would come out soon.
Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra said investigations were underway to find out whose cash was it, where was he taking it or why was he having such a huge amount.
"The investigations are on. At this juncture, I will not say anything," Jnanendra said.
The PWD Minister C C Patil said the Congress' charges that the money was meant for him were far from truth.
"If he (engineer with cash) had to pay me then where was the need to come to the Vidhana Soudha. He could have given me elsewhere. Police will take action against him," Patil told reporters here.
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.
More than 2,100 people have been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses
Los Angeles (AP): Police have arrested more than 2,100 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings.
One officer fired his gun inside a Columbia University administration building while clearing out protesters camped inside, a prosecutor's office confirmed.
No one was injured by the officer's actions late Tuesday inside Hamilton Hall on the Columbia campus, according to Doug Cohen, a spokesperson for District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office.
Cohen said on Thursday that the gun did not appear to be aimed at anyone, and that there were other officers but no students in the immediate vicinity. Bragg's office is conducting a review, a standard practice.
More than 100 people were taken into custody during the Columbia crackdown, just a fraction of the total arrests stemming from recent campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. A tally by The Associated Press on Thursday found at least 50 incidents of arrests at 40 different US colleges or universities since April 18.
Early Thursday, officers surged against a crowd of demonstrators at University of California, Los Angeles, ultimately taking at least 200 protesters into custody after hundreds defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds.
Police tore apart a fortified encampment's barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and dumpsters, then pulled down canopies and tents.
Like at UCLA, tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across other campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
Iranian state television carried live images of the police action at UCLA, as did Qatar's pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite network. Live images of Los Angeles also played across Israeli television networks.
Israel has branded the protests antisemitic, while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organisers — some of whom are Jewish — call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.
President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right of students to peaceful protest but decried the disorder of recent days.
The demonstrations began at Columbia on April 17 with students calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 and took roughly 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
On April 18, the NYPD cleared Columbia's initial encampment and arrested roughly 100 protesters. The demonstrators set up new tents and defied threats of suspension, and escalated their actions early Tuesday by occupying Hamilton Hall, an administration building that was similarly seized in 1968 by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.
Roughly 20 hours later, officers stormed the hall. Video showed police with zip ties and riot shields streaming through a second-floor window. Police had said protesters inside presented no substantial resistance.
At some point, the officer's gun went off inside the building. Cohen, the DA's spokesperson, did not provide additional details on the incident, which was first reported by news outlet The City on Thursday. The NYPD did not immediately respond to AP's request for comment.
The confrontations at UCLA also played out over several days this week. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told alumni on a call Thursday afternoon that the trouble started after a permitted pro-Israel rally was held on campus Sunday and fights broke out and “live mice” were tossed into the pro-Palestinian encampment later that day.
In the following days, administrators tried to find a peaceful solution with members of the encampment and expected things to remain stable, Block said.
That changed late Tuesday, he said, when counterdemonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment. Campus administrators and police did not intervene or call for backup for hours. No one was arrested that night, but at least 15 protesters were injured. The delayed response drew criticism from political leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and officials pledged an independent review.
“We certainly weren't thinking that we'd end up with a large number of violent people, that hadn't happened before,” Block said on the call.
By Wednesday, the encampment had become “much more of a bunker” and there was no other solution but to have police dismantle it, he said.
The hourslong standoff went into Thursday morning as officers warned over loudspeakers that there would be arrests if the crowd — at the time more than 1,000 strong inside the encampment as well as outside of it — did not disperse.
Hundreds left voluntarily, while another 200-plus remained and were ultimately taken into custody.
Meanwhile, protest encampments at other schools across the US have been cleared by police — resulting in more arrests — or closed up voluntarily. But University of Minnesota officials reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements, and similar compromises have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.
Ariel Dardashti, a graduating UCLA senior studying global studies and sociology, said no student should feel unsafe at school.
“It should not get to the point where students are being arrested,” Dardashti said on campus on Thursday.
