Belagavi (Karnataka) (PTI): Belagavi Police have arrested a woman who allegedly lured wealthy men and robbed them, officials said on Thursday.

The accused has been identified as Deepa Avatagi (33), a native of Mahalingpur in Bagalkot district. She claimed to be a fashion designer, they said.

Her associate, Shivanand Mathapati, a resident of Hukkeri taluk in Belagavi district, is currently absconding.

Police said Mathapati allegedly supplied information about affluent individuals to the accused.

According to investigators, Deepa befriended wealthy men through social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. After establishing contact, she allegedly engaged them in obscene chats and later invited them to meet her at a lodge in Belagavi city.

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Once the victim arrived at the lodge, she would ask him to take a shower.

While the man was inside the bathroom, she would allegedly lock the door from outside and flee with his mobile phone, cash and car keys, Belagavi Police Commissioner Bhushan Gulabrao Borase said.

Police said some of the incidents were captured on the lodge's CCTV cameras. The accused would later call the victim from another phone number and allegedly demand money, threatening to lodge a police complaint if the victim refused to pay.

A case has been registered at the Tilakwadi Police Station in Belagavi. A police team led by Inspector Parashuram Poojari arrested the accused during the investigation.

Police have seized property worth approximately Rs 32.86 lakh from the accused. The seized items include cars, 11 mobile phones, a tablet, a dongle, three car keys and Rs 14,000 in cash, the senior police officer said.

Further investigation into the case is underway, and efforts are on to trace the absconding accomplice, police added.

"The recovered items will be returned to the rightful owners. Shivanand is still absconding and will be secured very soon. He was earlier arrested in Bengaluru by the Bengaluru Police. We are currently working out to find how many people have been targeted by them," the officer added.

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Patna (PTI): Launching a frontal attack on the Bihar government, RJD's national working president, Tejashwi Yadav, on Thursday, alleged that the state has "failed" on all parameters during the 21 years of NDA rule.

His remarks came four days ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar on March 16. Six candidates—five from the ruling NDA and one from the RJD are in the fray for five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar.

In a post on X on Thursday, Yadav wrote, "The NDA government failed on all parameters despite years of a double-engine government. Bihar continues to rank at the bottom of most development indicators even after 21 years of NDA rule."

"Bihar is a unique state where the NDA's double-engine government has been in power for decades, yet the state still performs poorly across several socio-economic indicators. Bihar is the poorest state in the country, has the highest migration, the highest levels of crime and corruption, the highest unemployment, the highest level of multidimensional poverty and highest school dropout rate in the country, lowest literacy rate in the country, and the state has the lowest per capita income in the country," he wrote.

He further claimed that Bihar is the state where farmers' income is lowest in the country, lowest per capita consumption in the country, lowest computer literacy in the country, lowest electricity consumption in the country, lowest basic infrastructure in the country, lowest quality education in the country and the lowest industrial units in the country.

Yadav, who is also Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, said the state is lagging in almost every development indicator. He accused the government of avoiding accountability while running the administration through bureaucratic control, state resources and caste politics.

Ironically, despite being lowest on all development parameters, Bihar is leading in buying expensive gas, leading in buying expensive electricity, leading in buying expensive petrol-diesel, and here buying property is more expensive than in Delhi and Mumbai, he alleged.

State BJP spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar, refuted the charges levelled by Yadav and told PTI, "RJD leader should have compared the current situation in Bihar with the period between 1990 and 2005 when the state was governed by Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi. The condition improved only after the NDA government led by Nitish Kumar came to power in 2005."