Senior Congress leader D K Shivakumar at Karnataka Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. (ANI Photo/File) Senior Congress leader D K Shivakumar at Karnataka Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. (ANI Photo/File)

Karnataka Bandh Today HIGHLIGHTS: A special court in New Delhi sent Karnataka Congress leader D K Shivakumar to Enforcement Directorate custody till September 13 in a money laundering case. Shivakumar was produced before judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar after he underwent medical checkup at Ram Manohar Lohia hospital.

Earlier in the day, Congress leaders, led by General Secretary K C Venugopal, were denied permission to visit D K Shivakumar who was then admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi. Congress leaders have called his arrest as ‘political vendetta’ by the BJP-led central government. Meanwhile, supporters of Shivakumar burned KSRTC buses in Kanakapura of Ramanagara district Wednesday morning to mark their protest against his arrest. Crowds shouting slogans blocked the main roads in Chennapattna, Kanakapura and burned tires. As a precautionary measure, the district administration has declared holiday in schools and colleges on Wednesday.

The state Congress has called for a state-wide bandh following Shivakumar’s arrest in the money laundering case. The case registered by the ED last year is the fall out of an investigation carried out by the income tax department against Shivakumar in 2017 where Rs 8.83 crore in unaccounted cash was found in New Delhi in locations linked to the Congress leader. The ED had in September last year registered the money laundering case against Shivakumar and others based on a chargesheet (prosecution complaint) filed by the Income Tax Department in a court here for alleged tax evasion and hawala transactions worth crores.