Bengaluru, June 17: Commenting on the Karnataka BJP unit staging a protest on Tuesday to condemn the June 4 stampede incident, which claimed 11 lives in Bengaluru, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress President D.K. Shivakumar said the party was “carrying out politics over dead bodies”.

Speaking to the media after participating in the ‘Parisara Nadige (March for Environment)’ event, organised jointly by the Forest Department and the Karnataka Pollution Control Board in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said, “The BJP is doing politics over dead bodies. Shall I give the list of dead bodies from their time? What all had happened then?”

“At no point does the Congress party want to carry out politics over dead bodies. It is a natural disaster, and we condemn it. Let them do it, because their political base has been destroyed, and they want to show their presence, hence they are protesting,” said the Dy CM.

“Apart from this, there is nothing. No common person or social activist will cooperate with them. Everyone knows. The government has ensured that action is taken against those who are guilty. We have also appointed a One-Man Commission; if the BJP has anything to convey, let them convey it to the commission,” he stated.

Shivakumar questioned, “The BJP has been carrying out politics over dead bodies right from the beginning. There have been many stampede tragedies that have occurred in the country. I had been to the Ahmedabad plane crash site; did I say anything there? Did I blame the Central government for the incident? What about stampedes that were reported from railway stations and temples in Uttar Pradesh and North India?”

“Hundreds of people have died in religious events; who is responsible for all this? I have stated this: If you are stronger, there will be more enemies; if you are less strong, you will have fewer enemies. If you are not strong at all, there won’t be any enemies,” he stated while answering a question.

“They fear us and are doing anything, and you will see us regaining power in Karnataka in 2028,” said Shivkumar. When asked whether he would take the oath as the CM, he said the “Congress government would come to power”.

Talking about the environmental event, Shivakumar stated, “The Forest Department and the Pollution Control Board organised this event on the occasion of World Environment Day. While it was celebrated on June 5, the event is organised today. This year’s message is to ban plastic. The programme is being held to conserve water and the environment. More than 5,000 children participated in the event. They marched around the Vidhana Soudha building and gave a message to the public.”

“I have already sent a message to start climate clubs in all schools. There should be awareness created to conserve the environment, and every student must adopt a tree. Already, 50,000 students have enrolled in the tree adoption programme. The green cover should be protected; if there is no green cover, we won’t survive,” Shivakumar stated.

Shivakumar held a placard, rode a bicycle, and also participated in the march with schoolchildren. Minister for Forest Eshwar Khandre, Congress MLA, and the Chairman of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, P. M. Narendraswamy, also participated in the event.

Mumbai: Mumbai Police has claimed to have arrested Manoj Prasad Singh, a 25-year-old computer programmer from Bellary in Karnataka, for blackmailing a Mumbai college student and threatening to make obscene pictures of women viral on social media. A Mumbai college student had lodged a complaint that the accused had created a fake profile on Instagram and threatened to make her obscene pictures viral, after which the police started investigating him and after investigation it was found that he was working as a security guard in Karnataka and was living there. The accused had completed the Delhi Soft School Computer Training Program in 2016. His mobile phone has also been seized from the possession of the accused. Fake IDs and emails of 100 different women have also been recovered from his mobile. Along with this, fake Instagram IDs of 11 women were also created. 13,500 screenshots and pictures of women and girls were found in the gallery of the phone. The accused used to follow women and girls on Instagram, send them messages and try to make them nude videos and video calls. If these women and girls did not talk obscenely to him, he would create their fake profiles and make them viral on Instagram and other social media. The accused has been arrested and his remand has been obtained. This operation was led by Mumbai Police Commissioner Deven Bharti. It was carried out by DCP Mahesh Chamte.

Kolkata, June 17: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, will pass an interim order on the petition filed against the pattern of the fresh survey conducted by the West Bengal government to identify the Other Backwards Classes (OBCs) in the state.

The fresh survey was started by the state government following its promise made to the Supreme Court on March 18, while hearing a matter where the state government challenged an earlier order of the Calcutta High Court in May 2024, scrapping all OBC certificates issued in West Bengal since 2010.

On March 18, the state government also promised the apex court to complete the process of the fresh survey within the next three months. However, a petition was filed at the Calcutta High Court challenging the pattern of the fresh survey.

The petitioner accused the state government of entertaining applications only from those 113 OBC communities that were scrapped by the Calcutta High Court.

Last month, when the hearing on the petition came up at the Calcutta High Court, the division bench also raised some questions on the style of conducting the fresh survey by the state government.

The division bench also observed that if individuals genuinely eligible for getting the OBC certificates are not aware of the details of the fresh survey, they will be denied their legitimate rights, and hence, the main purpose of the fresh survey would be defeated.

It also directed the state government to make proper publicity of the fresh survey by issuing advertisements at the grassroots level, starting from village panchayats. The state government counsels, throughout the course of the hearing, had maintained that the fresh survey was conducted as per the court’s directions.

To recall, in May last year, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court cancelled all the OBC certificates issued in West Bengal after 2010, which ideally meant that all such certificates issued during the current Trinamool Congress regime in the state since 2011 stood cancelled.

Following this order from the division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, over 5,00,000 OBC certificates issued during that period stood cancelled and could not be used for enjoying the reservation quota for jobs.

The West Bengal government moved the Supreme Court on the Calcutta High Court order, and in March this year, the apex court allowed the state government to conduct a fresh survey to identify the OBCs in the state.