JD-S men attack Yeddy aide's home over charges

Suspected Janata Dal-Secular supporters attacked the residence of a key aide of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa after he made allegations of land-grabbing against the former prime minister and their party chief H D Deve Gowda.

The police said the supporters pelted stones at the house of Yeddyurappa's political secretary B J Puttaswamy on Tuesday night, damaging window panes and also a car, hours after he levelled the charge.

They also raised slogans against the Yeddyurappa government and Puttaswamy, who on Tuesday released documents alleging that Gowda and his family members grabbed 82.01 acres of land in Hassan district, the JD-S chief's home district.

The police said they were investigating the matter.

Allegations of land scams have been flying thick and fast between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition, particularly the JD-S which has been targeting the chief minister over the denotification of lands and allotment of prime plots to his family members.

Angered by the JD-S charges, Yeddyurappa has vowed "not to rest" till he exposed the "misdeeds" of the Deve Gowda family and decimated the JD-S to ensure that only the BJP and Congress remained in the state.

The government has ordered a judicial probe into land scam allegations that cover a 16-year period, bringing the regimes of Gowda's son H D Kumaraswamy, S M Krishna and Dharam Singh, as also Deve Gowda himself under its ambit.

Targeting Deve Gowda, the state cabinet on Monday also decided to conduct a Criminal Investigation Department probe into the alleged corruption and irregularities in the Upper Krishna irrigation project during the JD-S chief's tenure as chief minister.