ED conducts search and seizure operation at NRI businessman's premises in Udupi and Shivamogga, finds FEMA violation
During the search operations carried out on June 19, various incriminating documents related to FEMA violations and other digital devices were found and seized, according to a release from the ED on Monday.
During the investigation, it was found that Mohammed Iqbal, an NRI and Doha-based businessman operating in the manpower services business, had, over the years, remitted funds to the tune of ₹70 crore from his five business entities located in Doha to his NRE/NRO accounts maintained in India.
Incriminating documents seized during the search indicate that the said funds were subsequently utilised by him in violation of FEMA provisions, like loans given to resident companies, investment in residents proprietorship concerns and firms indulged in real estate business, purchase of agriculture lands and advances to various persons for purchasing lands for developing plots etc., the release said.
Further investigation is in progress, it added.
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India Today
4 minutes ago
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Sowjanya rape-murder: Case that first sparked Dharmasthala outrage 13 years ago
"Sowjanya's power has turned divine. The power of a minor who was brutally raped and murdered is now exposing the horrors that have happened in Dharmasthala", former RSS and Hindu Jagarana Vedike activist Mahesh Shetty Timarody told India Today Digital. Timarody is seeking justice for the alleged victims of Dharmasthala, and his remarks came even as a Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigates the allegations of young women being sexually assaulted and murdered and being buried in different parts of the popular temple town in SIT was formed after a whistleblower, who claims to be a former sanitation worker employed by the temple trust, alleged that he was forced over the years to burn and bury the bodies of women, including students, who were raped and murdered. Several activists, lawyers, and the state commission for women also demanded a thorough investigation. Some of the alleged perpetrators of the crime are related to the temple trust, they sanitation worker appeared in court under heavy police protection, his body wrapped from head to toe with only a transparent strip over the eyes to help him navigate. He had come to testify about the allegations he made, claiming he was forced to dispose of over a hundred murder victims, many of them women who, he alleged, were sexually assaulted, between 1998 and 2014. Before the current claims brought Dharmasthala to national headlines, the first case that sparked massive protests in the temple town was the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl, Sowjanya, in even after over a decade and massive protests, no one has been held guilty of Sowjanya's rape and a pre-university student studying at Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College in used to live with her now-dead father, Chandappa Gowda, and mother Kusumavathi in Ujire of Dharmasthala was a middle-class family, with the father working as a contractor for the Public Works Department (PWD) in Belthangady for several years, and the mother a RAPE-MURDER CASE: WHAT HAPPENED IN 2012On October 09, 2012, in the evening, around 7.00 pm, the family of Sowjanya started worrying. Their daughter had not returned from college. The family started searching for Sowjanya, and a group of villagers also gathered to accompany them. It was raining extensively that family claims that their daughter went missing while returning from an interview with a Mangalore-based YouTube channel, Kudla Rampage, Sowjanya's mother recounted, "Sowjanya had gone to college without having any food in the morning. It was an auspicious day of Hosa Akki (the day when families have new rice). My daughter had told me I'll come and have my lunch later. I couldn't even see her last time as I was busy with the daily chores inside the kitchen."advertisementSowjanya was last spotted alighting from the government bus near the Netravati river bank around 4.00-4.15 pm, according to her maternal uncle Vittal Gowda and other locals."When Sowjanya didn't return home, I anxiously called my brother (Vittal Gowda) at 7.00 pm and asked him that did he had by any chance seen Soujanya, and she even wished him in the evening," said her searching for the missing Sowjanya in every possible place, her father filed a missing complaint at the local police station late at night. Sowjanya's family had to file the case at the Belthangady police station, which is 15 km away from even after being a very popular temple town of Karnataka with thousands of devotees visiting every day, had no police station in the town. It was after this case that a police station was set up by the Karnataka state government under pressure in family and the police found Sowjanya's body the following day inside a forest located across a gushing stream near Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheswara Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital at Mannasanka. Sowjanya's clothes were torn, and her undergarments were missing, according to news spread like wildfire in the village, sparking massive police initiated an investigation to identify the perpetrator of the October 12, 2012, Mallik Jain, Ashrith Jain, Ravi Poojary, Shivappa Malekudiya, and Gopalkrishna Gowda, all working under Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Temple Trust, run by D Veerendra Heggade, caught a person named Santhosh Rao from the Bahubali entry point near the person, Santhosh Rao, was beaten by the public before being handed over to the police. According to the police reports, Santhosh was spotted in the area four days before the crime. Reports suggested he might have been suffering from depression or other psychiatric was from Karkala town in Karnataka's Udupi District. He worked in a hotel in Karnataka's Chikkamagaluru. His father was a retired government teacher, and his mother was a retired employee of the local Belthangady Police initially investigated the Sowjanya case, and later the case was transferred to the Crime Investigation Department (CID) within a month by the then Home Minister R CID submitted a 15-page report to the state government and named Santhosh Rao as the prime accused, according to The New Indian Express. It also gave a clean chit to four accused whom Sowjanya's family had accused in the CID report sparked massive outrage and protests in Dakshina Kannada an intensive public outcry, the then Siddaramaiah Government in 2013 handed over this case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which officially started the investigation in March CBI probed the case, and after a long trial, the CBI special court in Bengaluru acquitted Santhosh Rao on June 16, 2023, due to lack of the verdict, the court cited the failure of the prosecution to prove Rao guilty, and also highlighted significant lapses in the initial stages of investigation and evidence the verdict of the CBI special court, protests erupted and activists launched the 'Justice for Sowjanya' campaign. The activists and the family of the victim demanded the case be reinvestigated. But in 2024, the Karnataka High Court rejected the plea for a fresh investigation and said, "no purpose will be served even if reinvestigation is permitted".advertisementDespite all these years and all the developments, the big question — If not Santhosh Rao, if not the four other accused, then who raped and killed Sowjanya — remains sister, in an interview, sobbed and said, "When I see my sister's friends today, happily married and having a family, I always remember my sister and think that if she were alive today, even she would have been in the same happy situation.""In remembrance of our daughter Sowjanya, we planted a sapling in the place where her body is buried. Today, the plant has grown, nature has done its duty, but the agencies that had to get us justice have failed," Sowjanya's mother father, Chandappa Gowda, passed away on January 19 this year after battling cancer. He fought to get justice for his daughter but died without any closure. Sowjanya's case erupted in 2012-13, and it is over a decade now that allegations that hundreds of women, raped and murdered, have been buried in Dharmasthala.- EndsTrending Reel
Indian Express
4 minutes ago
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Stocks to Watch on Thursday, July 24: Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Infosys, Tata Consumer, RattanIndia Power, Westlife Foodworld and more
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Business Standard
4 minutes ago
- Business Standard
EV startup Matter launches ₹1.93 lakh Aera 5000+ e-bike, eyes IPO
Electric vehicle startup Matter, which launched its Aera 5000+ electric motorcycle in Mumbai priced at ₹1.93 lakh, is positioning the product as a direct alternative to internal combustion engine (ICE) motorcycles in the 150–200cc segment. Backed by US-based venture firm Helena, Matter says its product is designed not to compete with electric vehicles (EVs) but with petrol bikes. Capital 2B, Japan Airlines & Translink Innovation Fund (Canada), SB Invest, and othe₹are investo₹in the startup. Matter aims to take on ICE rivals like the Yamaha R15 V4 (₹1.85 lakh), TVS Apache RTR 160 (₹1.18 lakh), Bajaj Pulsar NS200 (₹1.45 lakh), and KTM 200 Duke (₹2.06 lakh). The Ahmedabad-based startup was in pilot mode until June 2025 and is now expanding across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. It aims to scale up from seven dealerships currently to 150 dealerships by the end of 2026, with a sales target of 50,000 units next year. The company expects to break even in the next three to five yea₹with a monthly run rate of 20,000–25,000 units. The Aera 5000+ comes with a 5 kWh battery and a certified range of 172 km, along with a four-speed manual gearbox—which the company claims is a first for an electric motorcycle in India. The company recently closed a $35 million Series B round, bringing its total funding to $75 million. Matter's post-money valuation now stands at $230 million. It plans to raise an additional $125 million in multiple tranches over the next three to four years, as part of a broader $200 million fundraising plan. 'The funds will be used to expand production, deepen research and development, and scale distribution,' Lalbhai said. 'We are targeting a public listing in the next three to four yea₹once we hit our revenue and growth milestones.' Matter has filed over 350 patents, with core components like the battery pack, gearbox, and powertrain developed in-house. Although the current Aera model uses rare-earth magnets, the company is working with a US-based firm on non-rare-earth motor technologies to mitigate future supply risks. 'India's motorcycle market is largely untouched by electrification. As more consume₹get options like Aera, we believe adoption will accelerate much like it did in scooters,' Lalbhai added.
