BJP stages protest against JSW land sale, financial fraud

Team Udayavani, Jun 13, 2019, 4:10 PM IST

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Bengaluru: The BJP on Thursday took out a protest rally in the city accusing the state government of being lenient towards financial fraudsters and selling precious land to JSW Steel at a throwaway price.

Holding placards and waving party flags, hundreds of BJP workers thronged the Maurya Circle and staged a demonstration.

They raised slogans against the state government accusing it of being insensitive to people’s problems.

Leading the protest, former deputy chief minister R Ashok referred to the IMA Jewellers’ case.

The firm’s owner Mohammed Mansoor Khan is reportedly absconding following emergence of an audio clip, purportedly of him, in which he is heard threatening to commit suicide.

“They (fraudsters) decamped with the money of 30,000 Muslims… the owner of the firm has escaped,” Ashok said, addressing the gathering.

Seven directors of the firm at the centre of an alleged financial fraud that left thousands of investors in the lurch have been apprehended. The state government has formed an 11-member special investigation team to probe the case.

BJP MLC N Ravi Kumar said “…broad daylight robbery is happening here. Muslim brethren are being exploited right under the nose of the Congress-JDS coalition government by one after another fraudster companies.”

The protesters also raised the JSW Steel land sale issue.

They accused the government of being hand in glove with JSW Steel as it allotted the land to the company at a “throwaway price.”

While welcoming the government’s decision to review the land sale, they said the government should make sure that every inch of the land is recovered. Caught in a bind over the controversial land deal, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Tuesday said the government’s decision on sale of 3,667 acres to JSW Steel will be reconsidered and placed before the cabinet once again for discussion.

After the protest rally, the BJP leaders and workers proceeded to stage a sit-in at the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat complex, when they were arrested.

Later, they were released, police said.