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Pinarayi Vijayan strikes back as Kerala Vigilance picks up Swapna’s close aide

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Hours after Swapna Suresh, prime accused in the gold smuggling case, slammed Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family for their role in the entire episode on Wednesday, her close aide and now colleague P.S. Sarith was picked up by the Vigilance wing of the police from their flat at Palakkad. Sarith is also an accused in the gold smuggling case.

Hearing about it, Swapna said she has no clue who took Sarith away and this is nothing but retaliation for her revelations.

The media and the local police also descended at the flat where Swapna and Sarith live with her children. Even the local police initially had no clue of who took away Sarith in a Swift Car.

It was revealed later that it was the Vigilance department sleuths who picked Sarith. Hearing about this, Swapna lost her cool and screamed politics is a dirty game.

“The Vigilance has only one case and it pertains to collection of commission in the construction of Life Mission flats. But in the case the 5th accused is M. Sivasankar (former principal secretary of Vijayan and top IAS official, who was also in jail for several weeks and is now out on bail in the gold smuggling case). I am the 6th accused and Sarith is only the 7th accused. They have not served any notice and instead they picked him and it was Sivasankar who should have been picked up first. We are not scared of any investigation as we all were in jail for months,” said an angry Swapna Suresh.

Meanwhile, in a related development on Wednesday morning Vijayan had a closed door meeting with police chief and his deputy.

Soon after that former State Minister and Left supported legislator K.T. Jaleel arrived at the police station next door to the State Secretariat, here and registered a complaint against the baseless allegations levelled against Vijayan, his family and himself.

“I have filed a complaint against these baseless allegations levelled by an accused in the gold smuggling case. This is nothing but a conspiracy hatched against the state government and both the Congress and the BJP have joined in this campaign,” said Jaleel.

“All these allegations which she has raked up again have all been probed by three national agencies and today she has aired the same, but with a lot of spice. We are all supremely confident as all these national agencies probed everything and found nothing. The role of P.C. George and his relation with Swapna is conspiracy,” added Jaleel.

Meanwhile across the state, angry supporters of the Congress led UDF took to the streets demanding resignation of Vijayan and at several places they burnt the effigy of the Chief Minister.

But Vijayan moving around with massive security cover while taking part in a meeting here said, in 2018 the state faced the worst floods in a century.

“Later, the state witnessed a never seen before barrage of allegations (gold smuggling case in July 2020) and it went on and on, with various agencies probing it. Finally the people of Kerala gave us a second successive term in office. The people dismissed all the allegations stating that this is their government. The people are with us,” said Vijayan, who is yet to interact with the media on this issue.

State BJP president K. Surendran asked Vijayan to quit and face the probe as an ordinary citizen.

“Swapna Suresh has told the court everything and hence Vijayan should quit and face a probe and come clean,” said Surendran.

Leader of the opposition V.D. Satheesan, leading the protesters at Kollam, said the probe by various agencies came to a standstill after several Kerala BJP leaders teamed up with the CPI-M to stop this probe then.

“But now things have again come out in the open and it’s strange that when Oommen Chandy had to face lot of issues, that law seems not applicable to Vijayan. This cannot happen. We are looking into all options on how this new revelation needs to be taken up at all fronts,” said Satheesan.

Earlier in the day, Swapna said she has no political or any personal agenda.

“I don’t know about politics and I do not care who is ruling the state, then or now. I have given a statement under 164 of CrPC in the past but none came out. Allow me to live, it’s difficult for me to live. Those ladies, who are wives and daughters including Kamala Vijayan (wife of Vijayan), Veena (daughter), are leading a luxurious life while I am suffering,” said Swapna.

On Tuesday, Swapna first accused Vijayan, his wife and daughter that they had a role in shady things like transferring currency notes to the UAE and also on a few occasions transferred vessels which were used to make biriyani from the residence of the UAE Consul general here to Vijayan’s residence and it contained metal objects.

Crime

Bengaluru PG Woman Murder Accused Arrested In Madhya Pradesh: Report

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Days after a 24-year-old woman from Bihar was murdered at a paying guest accommodation in Bengaluru’s Koramangala area, the police have arrested the accused from Madhya Pradesh, as per reports.

The development in the case comes a day after CCTV footage of the brutal murder surfaced online. The victim Kriti Kumari, who hailed from Bihar’s Patna, used to work in a private company and was staying in an accommodation in Koramangala’s VR layout.

She was stabbed to death on Tuesday night between 11:10 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. at PG outside her room. The accused has been identified as Abhishek, the ex-boyfriend of the victim’s PG roommate. He also hails from Bihar.

Bengaluru police is bringing him to the city for further investigation. He was identified from the CCTV footage at the PG.

The CCTV footage of the incident shows the accused arriving with a bag in his hand and knocking on the victim’s door. After the door opens, he enters the room. A few seconds later, the victim and the accused appear in the frame again. Now, the victim is seen crying out as she struggles to escape from the accused’s grasp.

According to reports, Abhishek frequently visited the PG and would often argue with his girlfriend, and Kriti would intervene. Kriti had reportedly asked her roommate to end her relationship with the accused, according to the police. Kriti had asked her roommate to break up with the accused, as per police.

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National News

‘Mantriji Haath Jeb Mein Se Bahar’: LS Speaker Om Birla Chides Minister For Putting Hand In Pocket Inside House

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'Mantriji Haath Jeb Mein Se Bahar': LS Speaker Om Birla Chides Minister For Putting Hand In Pocket Inside House

New Delhi, July 26: The Parliament’s Monsoon Session has seen its share of confrontations between the members of the ruling government and the Opposition. Even Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla has not been immune to getting into an argument or chiding a member for inappropriate behaviour. A similar incident was witnessed in the lower house on Thursday when speaker Birla scolded a member of the ruling government in the house and a minister for putting “hands in pocket”.

A video that has now gone viral shows Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla telling the minister, “Mantriji haath jeb se bahar (Minister, hands out of the pocket please)”. After this, Birla requested all the members not to put their hands in pocket while being inside the house.

He also went on to instruct that if a member is speaking, the member sitting in front should not get up and in fact try to sit somewhere back so that the member speaking is not obstructed.

The video also caught the voice of a person trying to clarify after Birla’s remarks. However, the video did not show which minister was scolded by the Lok Sabha Speaker.

This is the second time in two days when the usually unflappable Lok Sabha speaker was seen trying to correct an MP inside the house. On June 24, the exchange between Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had gone viral.

The video shows Om Birla asking TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee to not talk about past events while speaking on the budget and focus only on the current budget in his speech. Abhishek Banerjee retorted saying, “Then why do you have no problem when someone speaks on Nehru ji and talks about 60 years old things.” Banerjee then went on to say that if he speaks on demonetisation (which took place in 2016), then the speaker has problem.

The Union Budget and the first one of Modi 3.0 was presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23. The Opposition criticised the budget calling it an exercise by the government to ensure that it keeps its alliance partners happy and alleged that the budget favoured several states and deliberately left out the other regions.

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Farah Khan’s Mother Menka Irani Passes Away At 79, Days After Undergoing Multiple Surgeries

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Menka Irani, the mother of filmmakers Farah Khan and Sajid Khan, passed away on July 26, Friday. The news was shared by Kamaal R Khan on his social media handle.

Farah’s mother was 79 when she breathed her last.

The heartbreaking news comes days after Farah had revealed in an Instagram post that her mother had undergone multiple surgeries. On her birthday on July 12, Farah had penned a heartfelt note for her mother and had lauded her strength.

“We all take our mothers for granted. especially me! This last month has been a revelation on how much I love my mom Menka.. she’s been the strongest, bravest person iv ever seen.. sense of humour intact even after multiple surgeries,” she wrote.

“Happy birthday mom! Today’s a good day to come back home. Can’t wait for you to get strong enough to start fighting with me again.. I love you,” she wrote.

Friends of Farah and Sajid were seen reaching their residence to extend their support and condolences.

Menka was the sister of former child actors Honey Irani, who later married Javed Akhtar, and Daisy Irani. She is survived by her two children — Farah and Sajid.

Not many know but Menka also acted in the film Bachpan in 1963, which starred Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan.

In an earlier interview, Farah had revealed how their mother brought Sajid and her up after their father lost all money and died due to alcohol addiction. “We’d lost all our money, dad’s film had flopped. We had a riches to rags story,” she had said.

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