Bengaluru Cox Town vendors throw vegetables on street in protest against BBMP

Protest

The market was built way back in 2013, but the vendors have still not been allotted the shops by the BBMP.

TNM Staff

Vendors on the main market road in Bengaluru’s Cox Town held placards on Monday addressed to the BBMP Commissioner, and threw vegetables on the street demanding that the shops on this road be handed over to them. This market was built several years ago, but the city's civic body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has preferred to keep the shops shut, leaving the vendors to toil on the footpath. The vendors decided that enough was enough, and held a symbolic protest. Visuals show the vendors holding two carts loaded with vegetables, shouting slogans against the BBMP. The protesters then upended one cart full of vegetables, in a symbolic protest against the apathy of the government to their plight. The Deccan Herald reported that local residents too joined the protest, as non-allocation of the shops had led the vendors to display their wares on the footpath, thereby increasing traffic snarls on the narrow road. Residents added that the dust and pollution raised concerns about safety of the food they buy. The market was built way back in 2013, but even after a wait of seven years, the shops have not been allotted to the vendors. Instead, the BBMP office went up on the higher floors, and the officials parked their vehicles on the ground floor, as reported in a 2013 story by the Deccan Herald. Meanwhile, the traders of vegetables, meat, sea food and flowers, were forced to vend on the pavement, located just outside the Cox Town hospital, giving rise to health and safety concerns. The hospital is mainly a maternity hospital, which needs a high level of cleanliness in its surroundings. TNM reached out to the BBMP Commissioner to find out when the shops would be handed over, but received no response.

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Underworld don Ravi Pujari remanded to police custody till March 7

Crime

A team of police officers from the state including Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Amar Kumar Pandey and Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil went to Senegal to bring him.

PTI

Fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari who is wanted in many heinous crimes, including murder and extortion, was brought to Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday from Senegal, police said. Later in the day, he was produced before the 1st Additional City Metropolitan Magistrate's (ACMM) court which remanded him to police custody till March 7. A former close aide of India's most wanted and mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Dawood Ibrahim and gangster Chhota Rajan, Pujari was brought under tight police security by an Air France flight. A team of police officers from the state including Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Amar Kumar Pandey and Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil went to Senegal to bring him. Thanking Indian authorities, government and the Supreme Court of Senegal for the extradition, Pandey said,  “The whole extradition process in Dakar (capital of Senegal) took two days and on February 22 at 10 pm Senegal time, custody of the fugitive Ravi Pujari was handed over to Indian authorities under due procedures." The gangster was recently nabbed in South Africa in a joint operation by the SA police and Senegal security agencies, reportedly on a tip from Indian intelligence agencies, and was later extradited to Senegal, official sources said. At the time of his arrest in Senegal, he had a Burkina Faso passport with a false identity of Anthony Fernandes, the sources said. He was arrested by Senegal authorities last year and Indian counterparts had tried their best to get hold of him but failed as a local court there granted him bail. The gangster then jumped bail, fled Senegal and holed up in South Africa, sources added. Pujari, involved in at least 97 criminal cases in Karnataka, including 47 from Bengaluru alone, was running organised extortion rackets in the state and other parts of the country. There was an Interpol red corner notice against Pujari, who is wanted in multiple cases including murder, attempt to murder and extortion. He is said to be involved in a double murder at Shabnam Developers at Tilak Nagar here in February 2007, allegedly as the developer refused to pay him extortion money.

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Activists to oppose reducing buffer zone in Bengaluru’s Bannerghatta National Park

Environment

According to norms, no form of mining or industrial activity, tree felling, can be undertaken in Eco-Sensitive Zones.

Soumya Chatterjee

To oppose the proposed reduction of the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of the Bannerghatta National Park by 100 sq km, activists, resident welfare associations (RWAs) and farmers living in the park periphery, will submit a fresh petition to Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.  All stakeholders under the United Bengaluru banner, who met on Monday, said that they want the original 268 sq km of area marked as an ESZ zone as per a 2016 draft notification to remain so. This draft notification was passed based on 2011 guidelines issued by the Union Environment Ministry.  This comes after it came to light last week that the CM had written a letter to Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar dated February 1, seeking reduction of the ESZ by 100 sq km. This was apparently agreed on in early 2019 at a state-Centre meeting during the 33rd ESZ Expert Committee meet.  Environmentalists believe that maintaining the status quo in ESZs is important to protect wildlife, reduce human-animal conflicts and also preserve the natural flora and fauna of the area. According to norms, no form of mining or industrial activity, tree felling, or exploitation of natural resources can be undertaken in ESZ zones. Therefore, activists say that not only will the reduction in the ESZ be damaging for all residents, it will help the mining and real estate lobby. Read: Despite outrage, K’taka CM asks Centre to reduce buffer zone of Bannerghatta Park Srinivas, a farmer who was present on Monday’s meeting, said, “There is huge pressure from the real estate and mining mafia. We are getting life threats. We are living here since many generations and this land gives us our livelihood. We are not sure if the honourable CM knows about our plight. The government took an oath to save farmers, and now, we see that the government itself is putting us at risk. We request the CM to save the ESZ and in turn, save us.” Vijay Nishanth, an environmentalist, said, “We will not let this (reduction in the ESZ) happen. We will protest if our petition is not accepted. This proposal will damage not only the city of Bengaluru but will make living there unbearable. And it will destroy the future of the next generation. It's complete hypocrisy on the state government’s part where it is supporting vested interests and the real estate lobby in the name of development, and taking entire people of Bengaluru for a ride.” Harish Kumar, General Manager of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a non-profit run by BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that they are confident that the government will heed to the request of its people. He said that even though the government has changed (from the Congress-JD(S) alliance before), the real estate and mining lobby has continued to play its role in influencing this decision. “They (real estate and mining lobby) don’t realise that it is their own children’s health that they will put at risk. We will take steps that are legally available and see if we can get this move of government stopped. If nothing works, then we will think of going to courts too,” Harish said. Agriculture-practising residents of the ESZ also supported the environmental activists’ arguments.   

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Karnataka lawyers representing students in sedition case manhandled by other lawyers

Court

Videos show a mob gathered outside the Dharwad sessions court which included lawyers and civilians, and stones were pelted at the car of the accused's counsel.

Theja Ram

The lawyers representing the three Kashmiri engineering students in the sedition case filed in Hubballi were on Monday heckled by several advocates of the Dharwad Bar Association inside the court premises. A video of the lawyers chanting “Vande Mataram” and “Jai Hind” went viral on social media. At around 2 pm on Monday, a team of three lawyers from Bengaluru were at the Dharwad Principal Sessions Court to file a bail application for the three Kashmiri students booked for sedition and currently lodged at the Belagavi Central Prison. The three men, who were studying at the KLE Institute of Technology, were booked after a video of them allegedly saying 'Pakistan Zindabad' went viral earlier in February. The three lawyers went to the 3rd Additional Joint Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Court in Hubballi and obtained a copy of the FIR. They then went to the Principal Sessions Court in Dharwad to file the bail application. At the gates of the court, they were met with angry lawyers, who began demanding that they turn around and go back. The lawyers chanted “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and began questioning the counsel for the three students as to how they could represent anti-nationals. The lawyers demanded that no one from the legal community represent the accused in the case.  Those part of the mob-  including lawyers and civilians- began pelting stones at the car in which the accused’s counsel had arrived. “One of the three lawyers from Bengaluru had a narrow escape when a stone landed near his face. He sustained minor injuries but he ducked and was saved,” one of the lawyers said. The police gave us security and took us to file the application, one of the advocates told TNM. “We prepared a bail petition and met the Hubbali Bar Association President about giving representation. He spoke to us and said that we should apply for a writ petition. Then, we went to file a bail petition in Dharwad, but there, people surrounded us and didn’t allow us to go inside. They manhandled us. With difficulty and with police support, we went inside. We wanted to follow procedure and so we came,” he added.  Once the police got the three lawyers inside the court, they filed a petition before the court. However, the protesting lawyers entered the court hall and began shouting slogans there as well. “They entered the court hall when the lawyers were filing the petition for bail. They began shouting slogans there too, the judge told them that this was not the way to conduct oneself and counselled the lawyers about the rights of the accused. It was only then that these lawyers left the court hall,” said BT Venkatesh from Reach Law, whose colleague was one of the lawyers representing the accused. The car with shattered glass after the stones were pelted.  Speaking to TNM, Bhimaji S Godse, President of the Dharwad Bar Association said that he was present at the court and even led the protests against the three advocates from Bengaluru. “The High Court had issued an interim order against the Hubballi Bar Association’s resolution to not represent those who shouted Pakistan Zindabad. The order was not against us. These were students from Kashmir, who on the anniversary of Pulwama attack, sang along to a song called Pakistan Zindabad. Of course every accused has the right to be heard in a court of law. Let the three men represent themselves. We are members of the Dharwad Bar Association and we have decided not to represent them,” Bhimaji Godse said. Why were the lawyers protesting? On February 14, the Hubballi Rural Police registered an FIR against three student of the KLE Institute of Technology. The very next day, the Hubballi Bar Association and the Young Lawyers’ Association passed a resolution stating that none of its members would file a vakalat (a document where the party submits that said lawyer would be representing him/her in court) for the three students. The students were remanded to judicial custody. On February 20, the Karnataka High Court was hearing a petition filed by BT Venkatesh and 23 other advocates, stating that the Bar Association's resolution went against the rights of the accused of obtaining a defence. Hubballi Bar association members heckle lawyers representing the 3 Kashmiri students in the sedition case. They pelted stones at their car and also shouted slogans inside the courtroom in Dharwad. @thenewsminute pic.twitter.com/QrA9YByLOq — Theja Ram (@thejaram92) February 24, 2020 Chief Justice of Karnataka Abhay Sreenivas Oka, had said that the Hubballi Bar Association’s resolution violated the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Mohammed Rafi in 2011. Chief Justice Oka said that the resolution went against the Constitution, the statute of professional ethics and also called it a disgrace to the legal community. “Despite the Chief Justice of Karnataka passing orders against the resolution, the lawyers were heckled today by several advocates in the Dharwad court. Stones were pelted at their car. They were threatened,” BT Venkatesh added. Speaking to TNM, Ashok Baligar, President of the Hubballi Bar Association said that its members were not part of the protest as they were abiding by High Court orders. "We had passed a resolution and the High Court has passed the interim order. We abide by the honourable court's order. The incident happened in the Dharwad court and members of our association were not present there. They were probably lawyers from Dharwad," he added.    

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Ministry of Home Affairs suspends Manipal University’s FCRA license

License suspension

The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license allows for an institution to receive and use foreign funds.

Prajwal Bhat

Image for representation: Manipal Centre for Virus Research

The Ministry of Home Affairs has suspended Manipal University’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license in a move that stops the institute from receiving or using foreign funds. An official from the institute confirmed this to TNM on Monday. This decision comes following allegations that ‘unauthorised’ research had been carried out on the Nipah virus, a biological warfare grade pathogen. However, virologists at Manipal Institute of Virology (MIV) denied the allegation stating that the health ministry had approved the lab’s handling of Nipah samples. Virologists from MIV have also clarified that the samples of the virus being used in the lab were inactivated and not capable of infecting people. They also stated that the virus was isolated for such purposes at the government-run National Institute of Virology (NIV), in Pune. “Our FCRA account was suspended in January 2020 over allegations we received foreign funding for Nipah virus testing. We have written to the Ministry of Home Affairs denying this. We are awaiting a response,” Dr G Arunkumar, MIV Director told TNM. The FCRA, 2010 regulates acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution into companies or organisations in India. Read: Manipal lab that detected Nipah virus removed from ICMR list, contests move The government’s decision came as a rude shock to Dr Arunkumar and his counterparts in Manipal. MIV was earlier hailed for its early detection and containment of the Nipah virus in Kerala in 2018. However, a year later, the laboratory found that it was removed from the Nipah guidelines in 2019 despite being listed as a designated laboratory during the initial outbreak in 2018. MIV was accused by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) of storing samples of the Nipah virus despite the lack of a biological safety level 4 (BSL-4) certification. Labs around the world are graded based on biosafety levels as issued by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. Pathogens which are deemed high risk and contagious, such as the Nipah virus are considered to be a high Risk Group (RG) 4 virus and can only be handled in laboratories which have been certified as BSL 4. The Indian government also asked the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop funding research in India without the government’s approval. However, Dr. Arunkumar states that no foreign funds were used for research on the Nipah virus. “We worked closely with the ICMR and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare during the outbreak investigation. We were corresponding with officials on a daily basis,” Dr. Arunkumar said. The presence of the Nipah virus was detected on May 18 2018 by MIV after they were sent samples from the Baby Memorial Hospital in Kozhikode to diagnose what appeared to be a cluster of encephalitis cases. Nine days after the virus was detected at MIV, ICMR sanctioned Rs 15.8 lakh for the outbreak investigation of the Nipah virus in Kerala. After the outbreak was deemed to be over in July 2018, MIV was asked to return all samples of the Nipah virus collected by the laboratory to NIV, Pune. “A team of officials from NIV, Pune arrived in Manipal and took away 18 samples which tested positive for the Nipah virus and 367 samples which tested negative. We were provided a receipt for the same,” Dr. Arunkumar added. But since then, MIV has faced problems over its handling of the Nipah virus. In April 2019, MIV was informed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that it was not eligible to store Nipah virus samples. The Acute Febrile Illness programme carried out by MIV along with the US CDC was stopped in May 2019 following a letter issued by the CDC which discontinued the programme. The project was started in June 2014 and was active in ten states in the country. It aimed to detect outbreaks and initiate public health action. MIV currently has active collaborations with the CDC, Public Health England (PHE), United Kingdom and the School of Public Health, University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA. Amidst these allegations, officials from MIV are looking to contest the ICMR’s decision to remove it from the ICMR list.

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Who is Ravi Pujari? The dreaded underworld don brought back to India

Crime

Ravi Pujari has been elusive for over 15 years and is wanted in over 100 cases in various police stations across the country.

Theja Ram

PTI

Underworld gangster Ravi Pujari, who remained a fugitive for over 15 years, was brought to Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday morning by the Karnataka police. With over 100 cases and 13 red corner notices against him, Ravi Pujari had remained elusive until the Karnataka Police tracked him down in South Africa. A team of investigators, headed by Amar Kumar Pandey, brought Pujari back to Bengaluru on Monday. Karnataka Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG and IGP) Praveen Sood said that he would be produced before the court soon. Ravi Pujari was arrested by the Senegal Police on January 19, 2019 after intimation from their Indian counterparts. Pujari was living in Senegal under the alias Anthony Fernandez and tried to convince the Supreme Court of Senegal that he is not the gangster the police claim him to be. However, on February 19, the court ruled in favour of the Karnataka police and allowed Ravi Pujari’s extradition to India. Ravi Pujari has 39 cases registered against him in Bengaluru, 36 cases in Mangaluru, 11 in Udupi, and one each in Mysuru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Kolar and Shivamogga. The Maharashtra Police has 49 cases registered against Ravi Pujari and 26 of them are under the stringent MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act).  Who is Ravi Pujari and why is he a wanted man? Born in Karnataka’s Udupi, Ravi Pujari moved to Mumbai in his teens, where he worked in Andheri. Pujari got mired in local gang activities and shot to infamy after killing a dreaded gangster in the area named Bala Zalte in the 1990s. He was recruited by Chhota Rajan’s gang after he murdered Zalte and was known as one of Rajan’s protegees. In the mid-1990s, three of Ravi Pujari's men allegedly shot Om Prakash Kukreja of Kukreja Builders in his office in Mumbai. Eight years after Kukreja’s murder, a Navi Mumbai-based builder, Suresh Wadhwa, is believed to have escaped a murder attempt by ducking under his office desk. Police believe that Poojary's men targeted Wadhwa. He is also accused of extorting businessmen and movie stars in Mumbai. He has made several threatening phone calls to activist Shehla Rashid, politician Jignesh Mevani and Bollywood singer Arijit Singh. During this feud, Rajan is believed to have moved to Dubai, where he allegedly extorted money from businessmen and hoteliers. As TNM previously reported, following the March 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, Chhota Rajan split with Dawood Ibrahim. Guru Satam and Ravi Pujari sided with Rajan and broke away from the group at the time. Dawood Ibrahim then attempted to kill Chhota Rajan in Bangkok in 2000. The attempt failed and Rajan was admitted to a hospital in a European country. At the time when Pujari was away from the country, the internal war in Chhota Rajan's faction had kicked off and a sharp shooter named Rohit Verma in the gang allegedly caused Rajan to distrust Pujari. Rajan had allegedly suspected that several of Pujari’s associates like Vinod Shetty and Mohan Kotian had turned on him. Rajan allegedly had Shetty and Kotian killed in Navi Mumbai's Panvel area and Bengaluru respectively. Unable to convince Chhota Rajan that he had remained loyal, Pujari broke away from him and moved to Australia in 2006, TNM had earlier reported. The ‘Hindu don’ The feud with Chhota Rajan had led Ravi Pujari to set up his own gang. Pujari’s operations spanned across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Udupi. Ravi Pujari began identifying himself as a warrior for the "Hindu cause." State police say that his transformation was an attempt to cover up his crimes. He is accused of killing Shahid Azmi, a lawyer representing the terror accused in the 1993 blasts case, and is also accused of plotting to murder Ehtesham Siddiqui, an accused in the 2011 blasts in Mumbai. By setting up a base in Mangaluru, which had by then become a hotbed for communal politics, police say that Pujari was trying to project himself as a man “fighting the enemy.” A charge sheet was filed against Ravi Pujari in 2011, which accused him of being the prime conspirator behind the shoot-out at the office of Shabnam Developers in Mangaluru in 2007, which left two dead. The police has said that the shooting was a conspiracy was to kill K Samiulla of Shabnam Developers and that Pujari wanted to portray Samiluua as having “links to the Muslim underworld.” In 2008, Pujari’s men were involved in a shooting at HML Shipping in Mangaluru, which is owned by a Muslim businessman. Police had said that the shooting took place as the businessman had refused to pay hafta to Pujari. Advocate MS Khan, the lawyer who represented founder of Indian Mujahideen Yasin Bhatkal, had written to the Delhi Police Commissioner in 2014 alleging that he had received death threats from Ravi Pujari. In October 2015, he reportedly made threat calls to two Karnataka Congress ministers of the, Ramanath Rai and Abhaychandra Jain. Both leaders are from Dakshina Kannada district and Pujari had allegedly accused them of protecting the murderers of Bajrang Dal activist Prashanth Poojary. In January 2018, Tanveer Sait, who was then a minister in Siddaramaiah’s cabinet, had said that Ravi Pujari had allegedly made threat calls and sent messages to him demanding Rs 10 crore. Under the police net in South Africa Amar Kumar Pandey, the Additional Director General of Police of Intelligence in Karnataka, who was investigating Pujari, tracked him down to Burkina Faso in 2018. ADGP Pandey found that Pujari had been living under the alias of Antony Fernandez. Ravi Pujari had assumed a new identity and was allegedly involved in investments and had also set up a chain of restaurants in South Africa. He fled Burkina Faso as the police were on his trail and ended up in Senegal’s Dakar. Intelligence officials learned on December 31, 2018 that Ravi Pujari had been hosting cricket tournaments in Africa and had photographs to prove it. ADGP Pandey alerted the Mumbai Police and also his counterpart in Senegal in January 2019, where he was arrested. Despite his arrest, Pujari maintained that he was Anthony Fernandez and was not Ravi Pujari, when he was produced before the court. The police submitted DNA samples of his family members to prove his identity and extradite him to India. After a year-long effort, the state police were able to bring him back to Bengaluru. 

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Watch: Karnataka Minister wants law to kill 'anti-nationals' on the spot

CAA

"People are doing whatever they want in this country. I plead to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi): such people need to be brought down," Patil said.

TNM Staff

File photo

As the state of Karnataka continues to debate various arrests in the state over charges of sedition, Karnataka Minister BC Patil told mediapersons in Chitradurga on Sunday that there needs to be a law to shoot protesters. Addressing the press, the Agriculture Minister of Karnataka said, “We need a new law in India. People who shout anti-India and pro-Pakistani slogans should be shot in the eye, and a law should be brought to this effect in the country. This is of immediate importance.” He added that people need to be afraid of making such statmenets. “They eat and drink in India, and breathe its air. How can they say Pakistan Zindabad and stay in this country? Let them go to China and say a single word against China? Citizens get frightened to speak against China. This is the situation in other countries.” “People are doing whatever they want in this country. I plead to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi): such people need to be brought down. These traitors of the nation, if they are shot in the eye, these activities will stop. For this, we need a new law. Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, Home minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai told mediapersons on Sunday that the police would investigate a “conspiracy to induce youth in anti-national activities”, as reported by the Hindu. He told reporters that they would monitor social media posts. Additionally, colleges where such students were studying, and organisations who were part of organising protests would be under the scanner, Bommai stated. He said that if students were not reined in from ‘anti-CAA activities’, action would be taken against the college authorities and orgnaisers of protests, reported Deccan Herald. Basavaraj Bommai also said that they were investigating the student Amulya Leona’s “connections to Naxals". Though many BJP ministers have been saying this, the police have not spoken of any proof to indicate the same. Amulya Leona had said “Pakistan Zindabad” thrice and later “Hinduatan Zindabad” while addressing a gathering in Bengaluru. She was immediately surrounded and not allowed to finish. Student protesters say that the statement was misconstrued and referred to her Facebook post where she had said, Zindabad to all countries. “…I don’t become a part of a different nation just because I say Zindabad to that nation. As per law, I am an Indian citizen. It is my duty to respect my nation and work for the people of the country…”, she had said.

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