Bangalore don floats people’s forum

BANGALORE: It is another avatar for Bangalore’s former underworld don Muthappa Rai. He launched an organisation called ‘Jai Karnataka’ in Bangalore on Tuesday to help the poor and needy in the state.

“I founded a trust called Muthappa Rai Trust (MR Trust) after I came out from jail. But that was an individual effort and I could not reach more people. Since I cannot come out in public often, other members will communicate and carry out the projects,” Rai said. However, Rai claimed that he did not have any political aspirations. “I have been asked by the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party to contest from my native village Puttur. But I am not interested,” he added. The 15-member group will help solve water problems in the rural Karnataka, get jobs for locals and encourage young sportsmen and artists, said Rai.

From being a notorious criminal—expanding illegal real estate dealing and running extortion rackets in Mangalore, Bangalore, Mumbai and Dubai—Rai turned into a real estate developer. He was in the most wanted list of criminals in Karnataka and had links with Chhota Shakeel and other underworld dons, and controlled the underworld activities of Bangalore for more than a decade. He was arrested by the Dubai police in 2002 and deported to India, but none of the nine cases registered against him could be proved.

k_bhargavi@dnaindia.net