BENGALURU: Kannada film star Darshan, his
girlfriend
Pavithra Gowda and 11 others were
arrested
on Tuesday for allegedly murdering Renuka Swamy, a 33-year-old male fan from Chitradurga who had allegedly posted derogatory comments about the actor’s partner.
Swamy’s body was found early Sunday in a drain in Bengaluru’s Kamakshipalya area, about 200km from Chitradurga from where he was abducted the previous day.
Investigations indicated that the pharmacy store employee was thrashed and tortured to death before his body was dumped. Darshan and the others have been remanded in six days’ police custody.
According to police sources, Swamy’s alleged comment against Pavitra, 37, on social media is said to have angered her 47-year-old star. Darshan is accused of getting Swamy kidnapped and being present along with Pavithra when he was beaten to death.
Darshan had been arrested earlier on charges of attempting to
murder
his wife in 2011. Pavithra, who has acted in a few films and now runs a boutique in Bengaluru, claims she and Darshan have been together for over 10 years. Darshan and his wife later reached a compromise in the murder attempt case and she withdrew her complaint through court.
On Tuesday, Darshan was picked up from a star hotel in Mysuru around 8.30am and brought to Bengaluru.
He has been shooting in Mysuru since June 9 for his upcoming movie Devil, which being made in the aftermath of his phenomenally successful Kaatera.
The others arrested in the case — Raghavendra, Vinay, Lakshman, Nandeesha, Nikhil, Keshava Murthy, Kartik, Pradosh, Nagaraj, Pavan and Deepak — are friends, associates and aides of the film star. Cops are looking for four more suspects.
Preliminary investigations revealed that Pavan, who works at Darshan’s RR Nagar residence, created a fake Instagram account in Pavithra’s name and was chatting with Swamy for the past two months. Trusting it to be Pavitra, Swamy kept abusing her. Pavan then showed these chats to Darshan.
“Raghavendra and a few others abducted Swamy from Chitradurga Saturday morning. Swamy, who was on his way to pharmacy, was bundled into a car and brought to (Bengaluru’s) RR Nagar by 3.30pm,” a senior police officer said.
The officer added: “Raghavendra and others locked Swamy in a shed belonging to Vinay in RR Nagar. First, Raghavendra, Jagadish, Raju, Karthik and Nikhil beat up Swamy. By evening, Darshan and others visited Swamy and a second round of thrashing took place. By late evening, Pavithra came and one more round of thrashing followed. Swamy died on the spot.”
In the wee hours of Sunday, some of the accused drove with Swamy’s body and dumped it near a drain in in Kamakshipalya area. “They wanted to throw the body into the drain. In a hurry, they left the body by the side,” the police officer said. A guard of a nearby apartment noticed the body and alerted the cops.
