NIA arrests another accused involved in murder of BJP's Praveen Nettaru in K'taka
New Delhi, Jun 4: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested another accused involved in the gruesome murder of BJP's Praveen Nettaru in Karnataka in July 2022.
The accused Riyaz Yousaf Haaralli alias Riyaz was arrested from Mumbai airport while he was trying to flee abroad, a statement issued by the NIA said.
Riyaz's arrest has taken the total number of accused taken into custody so far to 19 in the case.
His arrest comes less than a month after absconder, Mustafa Paichar, was nabbed along with one of his harbourers, Mansoor Pasha last month.
"The NIA on Tuesday swooped down on an absconder in the Praveen Nettaru murder case and arrested him from Mumbai airport while he was trying to flee abroad," the statement said.
Nettaru, a BJP Yuva Morcha district executive committee member, was brutally hacked to death by two motorcycle-borne assailants in Bellare village of Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka by cadres of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) in July 2022.
According to the NIA investigations, Riyaz returned to India from abroad on the directions of absconding accused Abdul Rahman.
Along with Mansoor Pasha, Riyaz had provided logistical support and a safe hideout to Mustafa Paichar in Sakleshpur, Hassan District, Karnataka, the statement said.
"Paichar, the secretary of PFI Puttur district and the head of the Puttur district service team, was the chief conspirator in the case," it added.
He had assembled the hit team that targeted the victim and, after the crime, had absconded along with others, the NIA said, adding that "he was finally traced and arrested by NIA from Sakleshpur on 10th May 2024 along with Mansoor Pasha".
NIA, which had taken over the investigation on August 4, 2022, has so far filed a charge-sheet against 21 accused persons.
The agency is continuing with its manhunt to track the other absconders, the statement said.
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PM Modi, RSS strengthening wall in path of SCs, STs, OBCs: Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi (PTI): Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS were strengthening the wall standing in the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs, even as he acknowledged that the UPA took steps to weaken that wall but not to the extent it should have.
Addressing the 'Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan', Gandhi also referred to the function held on Constitution Day in Parliament and said that it is his guarantee, that "Modi has not read" the Constitution.
"If PM Modi would have read this book then what he does daily, he would not do it," Gandhi said, displaying a copy of the Constitution of India.
Gandhi said the country's whole system is pitted against Dalits, Adivasis and backward class people.
He said a wall obstructs the path of Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs and Modi and the RSS are strengthening that wall by "adding cement to it".
"Slowly the wall (obstructing the path of SCs, STs, OBCs) is getting strengthened. Earlier, the UPA government gave MGNREGA, the land acquisition act, the right to food...those were ways to weaken that wall. Today, when I look back, I can say the UPA government did not weaken the wall to the extent it should have, it did not do it as strongly as it should have," Gandhi said.
"However, we used to make efforts to weaken that wall but they (the BJP) are strengthening that wall by adding concrete," the former Congress president said.
Gandhi said a caste survey being carried out in Telangana is a historic step and the Congress will do the same wherever it comes to power.
