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)

Hafsa Khanum, a Class IX student of Govt Urdu School, Nagawara has won the science essay competition conducted by the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology(KSCST), IISc Campus, Bangalore. She was awarded the certificate on the National Science Day held on 28th February at J.N Tata Auditorium.

Although the school has been functional for the past 28 years, this is the first time that a student of this school has participated in a competition and won.

In a major breakthrough in the journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh murder case, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) carried out its first arrest on Friday afternoon.

KT Naveen Kumar, 37, who was arrested on February 18 by the Bengaluru police for illegal possession of bullets, has been named as the first accused in the case.

The SIT arrested KT Naveen Kumar, of Maddur in Mandya, after informing a magistrate’s court in Bengaluru that it had found evidence of his involvement in the murder of Gauri Lankesh in the course of the investigation of the illegal arms case for which he was arrested on February 18.

The SIT initially sought a warrant for the arrest of KT Naveen Kumar in the case – shortly after he was remanded to judicial custody in the illegal arms case – by citing voluntary statements given by a few of Kumar’s friends about his links to the Gauri Lankesh murder.

The SIT gave the court a sealed copy of a confession statement given by KT Naveen Kumar about his involvement in the murder.

Gauri Lankesh, 55, was shot down with a 7.65 mm country made pistol in the drive way of her home in west Bengaluru on the evening of September 5, 2017.

Lankesh, the Editor of “Lankesh Patrike”, was shot dead by an unidentified man wearing a helmet while the suspect who rode the motorcycle was also not identitfied.

Investigations by the SIT has unearthed CCTV footage of a man conducting a recce of the home of the journalist a few hours before her killing. The physical structure of the man found conducting the recce in the CCTV footage has a close resemblance to that of Kumar.

The Karnataka government had set up the SIT to probe the journalist-activist’s killing.

(Agencies)

Lucknow: Tension prevailed in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday when a boundary wall of a religious structure was found razed.

Angry people protested the demolition in Bangarmau area this morning, but district civil and police officials reached the spot and pacified the protesters. A meeting of the ‘Peace Committee’ in the district was also called.

The wall has since been reconstructed in presence of Superintendent of Police Pushpanjali and other senior officials. Things are “normal” now, an official told IANS.

The police suspects the wall was razed late Friday night or early Saturday morning by inebriated youths celebrating Holi. Police said there were no eyewitnesses to the demolition.

Extra police has been deployed on the Bilhaur bypass in Bangarmau after the incident.

(IANS)

Dhaka: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature have launched an action plan to prevent Rohingya deaths from wild elephant attacks at a refugee camp that lies between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

At least 10 refugees, including young children, have been killed in such incidents at the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp, bdnews24.com reported.

The camp located along the migratory route between Myanmar and Bangladesh is used by the critically endangered Asian elephants, the UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

The “tusk force” will install watch-towers at key lookout points around the settlement and organise an Elephant Response Team to raise an alarm if elephants enter the camp.

The programme will also set up elephant routes and corridors so refugees know what areas to avoid during an incident. It will also implement an awareness campaign regarding the risks.

The project is part of wider initiatives by the organisations to mitigate the environmental impact of the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

(IANS)