Agartala: The post-poll violence in Tripura continued for the fourth day on Tuesday even as the administration, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) urged everyone to maintain peace.

According to a leader of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the 11.5-feet fibre statue of Vladimir Lenin was brought down with a bulldozer by the BJP activists on Monday evening.

“The BJP supporters, chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, knocked down the statue of Lenin near a government college in Belonia,” CPI-M leader Haripada Das told the media on Tuesday.

He said the statue was set up a year ago in Belonia, South Tripura’s district headquarters, around 90 km from Agartala.

“We are getting huge number of reports from different districts on Tuesday about BJP and IPFT workers attacking CPI-M members and supporters and demolishing their various assets,” Das added.

Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy on Tuesday, in a tweet said: “What one democratically elected government can do another democratically elected government can undo. And vice versa.”

Roy is believed to have referred to instances of statues of leaders iconic to other parties demolished or defiled in the past in the state.

A media report said Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday spoke to the Governor and Tripura Police chief Akhil Kumar Shukla, requesting them to take steps to control the violence in the northeastern state, ahead of the swearing-in-ceremony of the new BJP government.

CPI-M Tripura secretary Bijan Dhar on Monday night alleged around 514 CPI-M supporters were injured in attacks by rival BJP-IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura) party workers in more than 200 places across Tripura since Saturday, after the declaration of the poll results.

“Arsoning, attacks and loot were carried out in around 1,539 houses. Many rubber gardens and small vehicles, hundreds of small shops, were forcibly occupied, ransacked or burned at around 500 places,” Dhar told the media.

“We urge the administration and the BJP party leadership to take adequate measures to stop these post-poll violence immediately,” said Dhar, also a CPI-M central committee member.

Accusing the CPI-M for “deliberately provoking and indulging in violence and attacks on BJP supporters”, BJP Tripura Pradesh Vice-President Subal Bhowmik said according to the reports from different district party units, there have been 49 incidents of attacks on BJP workers and supporters by CPI-M cadres during the past 48 hours injuring 17 party men, who are now being treated in different government hospitals.

He warned all that law would take its own course against the attackers irrespective of party affiliations.

Meanwhile, following reports of clashes between the workers of the BJP and the CPI-M in different parts of the state, the district administration in several districts promulgated prohibitory orders and deployed additional security forces to foil the post-poll violence.

West Tripura district police chief Abhijit Saptarshi said police have arrested some people in Mandai in western Tripura for indulging in violence.

(IANS)

Mumbai: ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank’s Shikha Sharma have been summoned by an anti-fraud agency in the bank fraud case involving jeweller Nirav Modi and his partner and uncle Mehul Choksi.

Kochhar and Sharma will appear before the Serious Fraud Investigation Office in Mumbai on Tuesday afternoon, sources in the agency said.

The sources said the two top bank officials were summoned for giving loan facility to Gitanjali Group and would be questioned.

ICICI Bank is believed to have extended a loan of Rs 1,000 crore and Axis Bank Rs 700 crore last year to Gitanjali Gems of Choksi.

According to another source, officials of country’s largest lender State Bank of India have been called for questioning.

Both Modi and Choksi are alleged to have frauded Punjab National Bank with Rs 12,600 crore. They have since fled from country.

(IANS)

Colombo: Sri Lanka Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency to quell anti-Muslim riots that have killed at least two people and damaged dozens of mosques and homes, a minister said.

“The cabinet of ministers decided on tough measures, including a 10-day nationwide state of emergency,” Minister of City Planning Rauff Hakeem said as police imposed a curfew in the riot-hit central district of Kandy.

Sri Lanka on Tuesday imposed fresh curfews and deployed heavily-armed police commandos to a central hill district popular with tourists where riots have left two dead and Muslim homes and businesses in ruins.

Earlier the day, police extended a curfew in parts of Kandy, home to famous tea plantations and Buddhist relics, after rioters disobeyed an overnight curfew and went on a rampage.

The body of a Muslim man was pulled from the ashes of a burnt building Tuesday, police said, threatening to further fuel communal tensions that have flared up across the country in recent weeks.

A police spokesman said hundreds of commandos from the police Special Task Force had been deployed to the troubled district to restore order and enforce the curfew.

Muslim homes, business and mosques were badly damaged in riots Monday triggered by the death of a Sinhalese man at the hands of a mob last week.

The Sinhalese are a mainly Buddhist ethnic group making up nearly three-quarters of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people. Muslims are just 10 percent of its population.

More than two dozen arrests have been made and an inquiry opened into police conduct in Kandy, just the latest region to be plagued by religious and ethnic conflict.

Mobs set fire to Muslim-owned businesses and attacked a mosque in the east of the country last week after a Muslim chef was accused of adding contraceptives to food sold to Sinhalese.

The government dismissed the allegation as baseless and ordered the arrest of those fomenting unrest in the area.

Last November riots in the south of the island left one man dead and homes and vehicles damaged.

In June 2014 riots between Buddhists and Muslims left four dead and many injured.

That violence was instigated by a Buddhist extremist group whose leaders are on trial accused of spurring religious conflict.

(PTI)

All India Mahila Empowerment Party’s (MEP) President Dr. Nowhera Shaikh on Sunday took a jib at PM Modi’s now infamous phrase and asked quippingly, where the PM’s promised achhe din is.

Dr. Shaikh was addressing party workers at an election rally in Bellary.

Dr. Shaikh also said that MEP is not just a party for Muslims, but for everyone, irrespective of their caste and creed.

She said the party is contesting elections to create an impact in people’s lives, and promised interest-free loans for taxi drivers and farmers of the state if they come to power.

New Delhi: A special court here today granted bail to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti and her husband in a money laundering case.

Special Judge Arvind Kumar granted the relief to Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar, who appeared before the court in pursuance to summons issued against them, on a personal bond of Rs two lakh with a surety of a like amount each and directed them not to leave the country without prior permission of the court.

The two had moved bail applications. During the hearing, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) opposed the bail plea of the accused, saying they indulged in a “very serious” economic offence.

“Persons on such a post are committing such kind of activities which are totally against the nation,” ED counsel Atul Tripathi said.

The court asked if the probe agency had arrested the couple during the case investigation to which the ED replied in the negative.

This prompted the court to ask ED, “Why do you now want the court to take them in custody?”

The court had on February 8 issued summonses against Bharti, her husband and her firm Mishail Packers and Printers as accused in the case after taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the ED.

The ED had on December 23 filed its final report against Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar.

The agency had earlier attached a Delhi farmhouse of the couple in connection with its money-laundering probe.

The farmhouse, located at 26, Palam Farms in south Delhi’s Bijwasan area, was attached provisionally under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

It belonged to Bharti and Kumar and was “held in the name of M/s Mishail Packers and Printers Private Limited”, the central probe agency had said.

“It was purchased in 2008-09, using Rs 1.2 crore involved in money laundering,” it had alleged.

The agency had raided the farmhouse and a few other locations in July last year as part of its probe against two brothers — Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain — and others, who were alleged to have laundered several crores of rupees using shell companies.

The Jain brothers, currently on bail, were arrested by the ED under the PMLA.

The ED had also arrested Rajesh Agrawal, a chartered accountant who had allegedly mediated and provided a cash amount of “Rs 90 lakh to the Jain brothers in advance so as to invest in M/s Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd as share premium”.

One of the firms that the arrested duo dealt with was Mishail Printers and Packers Pvt Ltd, according to the ED.

Bharti and her husband are alleged to have been directors in this firm in the past.

“The company, M/s Mishail Packers and Printers, was registered at 25, Tughlak Road, New Delhi till the shares were bought by Bharti.

“It was only during 2009-10 that the address was changed to Farm no. 26, Palam Farms, VPO Bijwasan, New Delhi. Bharti and Kumar were the directors of the company during the relevant period,” the ED had said.

The ED had alleged that the Jain brothers, Agrawal and the daughter and son-in-law of the former Bihar chief minister were the “key persons behind the laundering of Rs 1.2 crore”.

(PTI)