2020 Abraham Accords made Israel more aggressive, say Palestinians

Bengaluru: Senior JD(S) lawmaker HD Revanna on Tuesday launched a diatribe against Director-General of Police Alok Mohan in Karnataka Assembly, dubbing him as “unfit” to be the top cop.

But an emotional Revanna also said that his son Prajwal Revanna, the former Hassan MP accused of mass sexual abuse, should be hanged if found guilty.

“If my son has committed wrongs, then let him be hanged. I won’t say no,” Revanna said in his first Assembly appearance after his family was embroiled in the Hassan sexual abuse case. 

“I’ve been a lawmaker for 25 years. I’ve spent 40 years in public life. Against me, some woman is brought to the Director-General’s office. The DG gets the complaint filed. Isn’t he nalayak to be the DG? He’s unfit. This is a shameless government,” Revanna said. 

This riled up members of the ruling Congress, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who asked Deputy Speaker Ramappa Lamani in the chair to expunge the comments. 

Revanna was arrested on May 4 in a kidnap and illegal confinement case linked to the Hassan sexual abuse saga. 

Revanna rose to speak after Leader of the Opposition R Ashoka drew a comparison between the manner in which Special Investigation Teams (SIT) are probing the Hassan sexual abuse case and the embezzlement at the Maharshi Valmiki ST Development Corporation. 

“Revanna, Bhavani and our former Hassan MLA Preetham...they’re facing an SIT. But that SIT is so strong...all of them went to court seeking justice fearing arrest,” Ashoka said. “But with the other SIT, there’s no fear,” he said, adding that former minister B Nagendra was not summoned for investigation for over 30 days. 

Senior BJP lawmaker S Suresh Kumar interjected. “There’s SIT and there’s SSIT. The SIT is Special Investigation Team. The SSIT is the Siddaramaiah Shivakumar Investigation Team,” he said. Taking exception, Shivakumar said the comment should be expunged.

Bareilly: The programme proposed by the local political group Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) to conduct mass marriage of men and women of other religions who have converted to Islam has been postponed after the district administration denied permission for the event.

IMC chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, who had announced to organise the event, said, "We work within the ambit of the law. The mass marriage program will be held only after the permission of the administration. We sought permission from the administration, which was not given. The program will not be held without the permission of the administration."

IMC state in-charge Nadeem Qureshi said the city magistrate did not give permission to convert and perform the marriage of couples. The program has been postponed for now, he added.

"The marriage of men and women who have converted from Hinduism to Islam will be conducted and in the first phase, five couples will get married, in which the men and women will complete the process of conversion and embrace each other," the IMC chief had earlier said.

The IMC had sought permission from the district administration for the event but their request was denied on Tuesday evening.

District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar said late on Tuesday night that the IMC had sought permission from the city magistrate to organise an event for religious conversion and marriage.

"The permission for the same has not been given and the religious conversion and marriage program has been postponed by IMC. The administration has received the letter from IMC informing about the postponement of the program," the officer said.

"The mass marriage ceremony will be held on July 21 at 11 am in Khalil Higher Secondary School. Permission has also been sought from the administration for this," he added.

The IMC chief's proposed 'mass marriage programme after conversion' resulted in a controversy with Hindu organisations staging a protest and seeking action against Khan here on Tuesday.

The protestors also submitted memorandums to the district magistrate with their demands.

Bengaluru: Dengue cases in Karnataka are inching closer to the 10,000-mark, with the total positive cases as of Monday reaching 9,962 according to the health department's bulletin.

Another death in Shivamogga has brought the total fatalities due to dengue to eight. This is, however, not inclusive of the death of an 11-year-old boy in Bengaluru on July 5 that BBMP officials later confirmed was due to dengue.

Nearly 37 per cent of the all dengue positive cases reported across the state till Monday evening were among those aged up to 18 years. The number of dengue cases among children aged 0-1 years has also been on the rise, with 176 cases reported across the state.

The health department has tested over 73,900 blood samples for dengue so far, testing a few thousand samples every day.

A total of 363 cases were recorded in Bengaluru on Monday, with 35 hospitalisations. This brings the total number of positive cases in the city to 3,487. Suspected dengue cases, where people might be displaying similar symptoms as dengue but would not have yet tested positive for the infection, stood at 19,066 cases.

Between January 1 and July 1, the city recorded 1,563 positive cases with 6,443 suspected cases, according to the bulletin. Within the next two weeks, these numbers doubled to 3,124 and 14,281, respectively.

This, according to Dr Savitha S K, programme head of the vector-borne disease control programme wing of the BBMP, was not any cause for alarm. "We are actively searching for cases during our door-to-door surveys and also passively collecting data from hospitals. Last year, data was lost or not captured accurately, particularly in private hospitals, which did not record the addresses of patients. This impacted our total numbers but we are documenting cases better this year," she said.

Sources in the health department who wished to maintain anonymity noted that some of the underreporting at the city level was also in a bid to avoid panic among residents. Therefore, comparison with data from the previous year would not yield accurate results, they noted.