MANDYA: Maddur police, who are investigating the murder of JD(S) leader Honnalagere Prakash, are questioning four people in connection with the case. Prakash was stabbed to death near T B Circle in Maddur on Monday evening. Speaking to the media, Mandya Superintendent of Police P Shiva Prakash Devaraj confirmed filing of FIR against eight suspects in the case, but denied making any arrests. The FIR has been filed against Swamy, Hemanth, Yogesh, Shivaraj, Muttesh, Prasanna and two others, most of them from Toppanahalli village, Maddur taluk.
This comes in the wake of a complaint filed by one Abhilash, who was accompanying Prakash at the time of the attack but had gone to a shop after parking the MUV with the latter inside the vehicle. While it is said that Prakash was killed over a two-year-old double murder, the police are probing it from all angles, the SP said.
Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy visited Toppanahalli on Tuesday and paid his last respects to the mortal remains of Prakash. An emotional CM said, “Prakash was a nice person ... he used to regularly meet me.”The CM was accompanied by his actor-son Nikhil Kumaraswamy and Irrigation and Mandya district in-charge minister C S Puttaraju.
Later, the mortal remains were taken out in a procession in a goods autorickshaw decorated with flowers and the final rites were conducted in an agricultural field. Prakash’s son Abhilash lit the funeral pyre.
As a precautionary measure, police have deployed over 1,000 personnel in Maddur and Toppanahalli.
Earlier in the day, tension prevailed for some time when Prakash’s relatives refused to take the body from the mortuary. Following the murder, the enraged supporters of Prakash barged into five houses belonging to the suspects at Toppanahalli on Monday night and vandalised the premises.