Ponzi scheme: Whistleblower Alam Pasha seeks arrest of IAS officer, cop and IMA chief

News Network
October 27, 2021

Bengaluru, Oct 27: Industrialist-cum-whistleblower Alam Pasha has lodged a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau seeking arrest of three persons, including IAS officer Harsh Gupta and Commercial Street Inspector of Police for alleged dereliction of duties with an ulterior aim to acquit IMA chief Mohammed Mansoor Khan, who is an accused in IMA scam.

Speaking to UNI, Pasha said Gupta, who was appointed by Karnataka government as Competent Authority (CA) on behalf of Revenue Department to retrieve the investors monies of more than Rs 4,000 crore and take action as per law against Khan and other accused in the case.

Giving background of the scam in his complaint, Pasha said Khan had floated a ponzi scheme offering investors dream returns on investments made in his firm called I Monetary Advisory Group.

Around October 2018, as many as 75,000 investors began complaining of the firm reneging on payments worth Rs 4,000 crore and the firm also had come under the RBI scanner, he said.

The firm was accused of siphoning off nearly Rs 4,000 crore of funds for the personal benefit of the owners of the firm, he said.

In June 2019, Khan absconded as police initiated a probe in the case. Before absconding, he had released an audio message for the police accusing then Congress MLA Roshan Baig for the fall of the firm, Pasha alleged.

Khan alleged Baig borrowed Rs 400 crore from the firm and failed to return it. He had also accused other politicians and officials of bleeding IMA resources, the complainant said.

After the scam became a major controversy, the then Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy ordered the creation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the IMA scam, he said.

Khan was arrested by the ED at Delhi airport in July 2019. In October 2020, he was granted bail by Karnataka High Court, Pasha said.

Gupta, the complainant said, has failed to take action as per law to book IMA culprits to meet the purpose of his appointment to retrieve the monies of the investors from them.
He said the CA has failed in his duty to direct the Inspector of Police to file FIRs against the IMA culprits so that the victims of the scam get back their monies, which they had invested in nine of the companies owned by Khan.

"Unless the police file FIRs against the IMA culprits, no court in the country shall be able to deliver the verdict in favour of the victims. Filing FIRs is the first step towards providing relief to the victims," he said.

The CA also has failed in his duties to seek the intervention of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to investigate serious frauds committed by IMA Group of companies so that the investigation is carried out without depending on police and their investigation, Pasha said.

The IMA group of companies fall under the purview of the Companies Act 2013 as they are not financial establishments, Pasha said.

Also, the CA has been appointed under section 5 of the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishment Act 2004, who enjoys powers to initiate an investigation into the financial establishments, but IMA Group of companies are full-blown firms, Pasha said.

"So, knowing that he has to depend on the investigation of the police, the CA is well within his rights to seek the intervention of the Ministry of Corporate Companies to conduct investigations under SFIO rules. If he is sincere and genuine, he would have asked for the SFIO probe," he said.

"It is very clear that the CA and the police officer are working in favour of the accused, namely Khan, rather than giving relief to the IMA victims, who are waiting for retrieval of their money. In these circumstances, I had approached the ACB and lodged a complaint seeking arrest of the three accused," Pasha said.

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Agencies
November 22,2025

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New York/Washington: US President Donald Trump has again claimed to have solved the conflict between India and Pakistan, repeating his assertion during a meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office.

Mamdani flew to Washington DC for his first meeting with Trump in the White House on Friday. Trump said he “enjoyed” the meeting, which he described as “great.”

During remarks in the Oval Office, with Mamdani standing next to him, Trump repeated his claim that he solved the May conflict between India and Pakistan.

"I did eight peace deals of countries, including India and Pakistan,” he said.

On Wednesday, Trump had said he threatened to put 350 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they did not end their conflict, repeating his claim that he solved the fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called him to say “we're not going to go to war.”

Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over 60 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan.

India has consistently denied any third-party intervention. India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.

Mamdani emerged victorious in the closely-watched battle for New York City Mayor, becoming the first South Asian and Muslim to be elected to sit at the helm of the largest city in the US.

He had been the front-runner in the NYC Mayoral election for months and defeated Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and political heavyweight former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent candidate and was officially endorsed by Trump just hours before the elections.

Indian-descent Mamdani is the son of renowned filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. He was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda and moved to New York City with his family when he was 7. Mamdani became a naturalised US citizen only recently, in 2018.

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News Network
December 5,2025

Mangaluru: In a significant step to curb online hate and intimidation, Mangaluru City Police have registered a suo motu case against multiple Instagram accounts accused of circulating alleged provocative and threatening content.

While monitoring social media activity on Tuesday, Kankanady Town PSI Anitha Nikkam identified the Instagram handle ‘team_targetttt_900’ for posting a hate message alongside images of lethal weapons. Another account, ‘team_nagara_900’, allegedly shared a threatening post targeting activist Bharath Kumdelu, tagging additional pages such as KARAVALI-OFFICIAL.

Several other accounts — including ‘immu_bhai.fan’, ‘target_boy_900’, ‘kings_of_manglore’, ‘team_target_boys.900’, ‘arshad_mangalore’, ‘target_ka19_ullal’, ‘team_target__’, ‘troll_tigersz_900’, ‘tr_group_900’, and ‘team_target_900’ — are also under scrutiny for spreading similar inflammatory material, police said.

Authorities have urged citizens, especially young social media users, to report suspicious pages and avoid engaging with groups that glorify violence or threaten individuals. Online hate can quickly escalate into real-world harm, and police stress that sharing or promoting such content can attract legal consequences.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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