Cyberabad police on Wednesday began questioning Gutta Suman Kumar, the main accused in the case relating to gambling organised at a farmhouse allegedly belonging to the father of a Tollywood actor.

Police on Sunday raided a farmhouse at Manchirevula in Narsingi on the outskirts of Hyderabad and arrested 30 people including a former MLA for gambling.

A local court on Monday sent the accused, including former MLA from Mahabubabad, Sriram Bhadraiah, to judicial custody for 14 days.

The court on Tuesday allowed police custody of the main accused.

A police team from Narsingi Police Station under the limits of Cyberabad Police Commissionerate took custody of Suman and after his medical checkup at the government-run Osmania Hospital, began questioning him.

Suman had taken the farmhouse on rent for one day from the father of a young actor, who, in turn, took the property on lease from a retired bureaucrat for film shootings. The police on Wednesday called the actor’s father to the police station along with the lease document to ascertain the facts.

According to police, Suman had taken the farmhouse on rent for one day for a birthday party but organised gambling by inviting several people. Those arrested include some realtors.

Police booked the accused under Telangana Gaming Act. They seized Rs.6.77 lakh cash, 33 mobile phones, three cars and 29 gambling sets.

Police learnt during the investigation that main accused Suman already had cases registered against him in Hyderabad and Bengaluru under Anti-Gambling Act and was arrested in the past.

The questioning by police is likely to bring out the modus operandi of the main accused. He is allegedly involved in organising casinos at star hotels and farmhouses by inviting rich individuals through WhatsApp groups. After receiving the payments, he used to issue coins to them to participate in the gambling.

Srinivas, coordinator of public health in Telangana, gave a call to IT companies of Hyderabad to open their offices as these companies provide lot of indirect employment. He urged the companies to function in the same way as they used to do prior to Covid 19. However, both the employers and employees are still not convinced with the proposal of the government.

Employers and employees both benefited by WFH:

Even though Work from home concept has been there in countries like US and UK for so long, Indian companies, except for a few product based companies, did not provide this facility for employees until 2020. However, with Corona pandemic, the functioning style of Indian companies also changed and all the companies provided work from home option to their employees. Employees and employers – both benefited with the WFH culture. Employees saved their time and energy as they could avoid long traffic lines and travel, while employers could save their logistic costs. Some companies even passed their cost savings to employees this year in the form of bonuses.

But some others negatively impacted:

However work from home culture impacted negatively not only the small the employees like housekeeping staff, auto drivers and other small businesses in IT corridor, but also negatively impacted real estate business and petrol bunks. It seems, the associations of real estate and petrol bunks are urging Telangana government to open offices. So, the government now wants the companies to open the offices and justifying its decision by citing the indirect employment to small time employees.

Employees are not welcoming government decision:

However, employees are criticizing government on this and say they are not getting any kind of benefits from the government despite paying huge taxes promptly and they don’t get any additional benefit by working from offices. They are adding, the real estate groups in Hyderabad were rising their prices at ridiculously high rates before pandemic and now also the government is opening offices only upon the pressure from such real estate tycoons. They add, contrary to common perception, the work load didn’t decrease because of work from home but it increased a bit more. But still they prefer work from home because it is economical for them.

However, the companies, even though they want to continue WFH, do not want to go against the government and want to open the offices. Some companies have already asked their top management personal to work from offices.

We need to wait and see whether all IT offices in Hyderabad will get opened by the end of the year.

People in Hyderabad and surrounding districts on Wednesday witnessed a rare spectacle in the sky.

A circular halo around Sun dazzled the citizens in several parts of Hyderabad and in neighbouring Medak, Siddipet and Sangareddy districts.

People stepped out to see the rainbow-coloured ring around the Sun, also called ’22 degree halo’. This was visible between 11 a.m. and 12.30 noon.

Surprised to see the rare phenomenon, several citizens captured the image on their mobile phones and shared it on various social media platforms.

Sun halo is an optical phenomenon that occurs due to sunlight refracting in millions of hexagonal ice crystals in the cirrus cloud. It takes the form of a ring with a radius of approximately 22 degrees around the sun or the moon.

According to the UK-based Atmospheric Optics, a knowledge-sharing website, 22 degree halos are visible all over the world and throughout the year. Halos are formed whenever the sky is wisped or hazed with thin cirrus clouds. These clouds are cold and contain ice crystals in even the hottest climes.

A few hours after sun halo, parts of Hyderabad and surrounding districts received rains.

A 200-bedded Covid isolation centre was inaugurated on Monday at the NAC Dormitory, Art of Living Foundation, near Hitex in Hyderabad’s Madhapur.

The facility has been set up in collaboration with the NAC, the International Association for Human Values (IAHMC), the Cyberabad police, the Society for Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC) and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader and Legislative Council member K. Kavitha inaugurated the facility in the presence of Serliingampally MLA Arikepudi Gandhi, Deputy Mayor Mothe Srilatha, Cyberabad Police Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar and SCSC Secretary General Krishna Yedula.

Kavitha stated that the Telangana government is working on strengthening the medical services in the state.

Sajjanar mentioned that the 200-bed facility is equipped with oxygen concentrators and necessary Covid medical equipment. The District Collector has allocated medical staff compromising duty doctors and staff nurses.

Free breakfast, lunch and dinner is arranged for the patients. Recreational facilities like meditation and other activities are also planned for the patients in a relaxed environment to help recuperate them faster.

This facility is annexed to the Kondapur Area Hospital and linked to the Covid Control Room. Any one who wishes to avail the services of this facility may reach out to 9490617440 (Cyberabad Covid Control Room).

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday conducted searches at seven places in Hyderabad in connection with the money laundering investigation into the large scale scam in Telangana IMS (Insurance Medical Services) ESI Department.

An ED official said that the agency carried out searches at seven location in Hyderabad and seized large amount of incriminating evidence, huge amount of unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 3 crore, a crore worth of jewellery, blank cheques, property papers and lockers.

The official said that money laundering probe was initiated against the then Director of IMS Devika Rani, her husband, Srihari Babu aka Babji of Omni Group and several others on the basis of eight FIRs registered by Telangana ACB on the allegations of financial irregularities in the purchase and supply of medicines and surgical kits, huge price escalation, gross deviations from ESIC and government norms, creation of fake indents, fake bills, diversion of medicines and falsification of records.

The scam has generated proceeds of crime (POC) approximately from Rs 100 to Rs 200 crore.

The official said that the financial probe agency searches began on Saturday morning at the residential premises of Devika Rani, Srihari Babu, V Srinivas Reddy, son-in-law of ex-Labour Minister Late Nayani Narsimha Reddy, Mukunda Reddy, Personal Secretary to ex-Labour Minister, M Vinay Reddy, brother-in-law of Mukunda Reddy, Burra Pramod Reddy and business premises of Omni Medi.

The official said that during the course of searches, unaccounted cash of around Rs 1.50 crore, Rs 1.15 crore, Rs 45 lakh is seized from the residential premises of V. Srinivas Reddy, Burra Pramod Reddy and M. Vinay Reddy respectively.

The ED also recovered several incriminating evidence documents and digital evidence.

Under Strategic Road Development Programme (SRDP) aimed at easing traffic congestion in Hyderabad, foundation stone was laid on Saturday for two steel flyovers to be built at a cost of Rs 426 crore.

Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K.T. Rama Rao laid the foundation stone in the presence of Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will build a four-lane bi-directional elevated corridor from Indira Park to VST (2.610 km) at a cost of Rs 350 crore.

A second level three-lane bi-directional flyover will be constructed from Ram Nagar to Baghlingampally (0.850 km) at a cost of Rs 76 crore.

Both the flyovers will be made of steel and will have steel piers, steel pier caps, and steel girders with cast in-situ deck slabs.

Rama Rao said though steel bridge works cost 20 to 30 per cent more, the government decided to build steel bridges as the works can be completed faster and avoid inconvenience to road users.

KTR, as the minister is popularly known, said the government was committed to build skyways up to a length of 36 km at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore.

Stating that the skyway works require defence lands, he urged Kishan Reddy to use his good offices to persuade the defence ministry to hand over these lands for road development.

KTR said during the last six years, the government undertook several road improvement works in Hyderabad. SRDP works were taken up at a cost of Rs 6,000 crore

He pointed out that due to less volume of traffic on the roads during the last four months because of the lockdown, the works were expedited. He said the work which would have taken 10 months was completed in two months.

The minister said that if Hyderabad is to be developed into a global city, traffic congestion has to be eased. “Realising this, on one hand SRDP was launched while on the other Hyderabad Road Development Corporation Limited was formed to take up new link roads and missing roads. Under an innovative initiative, comprehensive road maintenance programme, 710 km length of roads were given to private parties for maintenance.”

Kishan Reddy stressed the need for rising above politics and working together to improve road infrastructure in the city.

He said the population of Hyderabad was likely to grow further and hence there was a need for more roads and flyovers. Stating that investors are reluctant to go to Bengaluru because of the traffic problems there, the minister called for avoiding such a situation in Hyderabad.

Kishan Reddy called for speeding up the flyover work at Amberpet jointly undertaken by the Centre and the state government.