BENGALURU: The police custody of actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, accused number 2 in the Renukaswamy murder case, has been extended by two days on Thursday.
Three other accused — D Dhanaraj alias Raju, accused number 9, from RR Nagar; V Vinay (38), accused number 10 from RR Nagar, and S Pradush (40), accused number 14 from JP Road in Girinagar — will also be in police custody till Saturday.
According to the police, Dhanaraj gave electric shocks to the victim with a megger device (an electrical testing equipment) and Vinay, owner of Stonny Brook pub in RR Nagar had allowed the accused to torture and kill the victim at his uncle’s shed in Pattanagere. Police had recovered Rs 30 lakh in cash from the residence of Pradush, an IT engineer who had earlier worked in the IT cell of a national political party.
The remaining accused, including P Pavithra Gowda, Puttaswamy, Raghavendra, Nandeesh, Jagadish, Ravi Shankar and Deepak have been remanded to judicial custody. Police had made elaborate police security arrangements, deploying three KSRP platoons, near Parappana Agrahara to avert any untoward incident. Pavithra’s minor daughter had come to the court along with her grandmother.
The accused were brought to the court in the ACMM complex on Nrupathunga Road at 3.45 pm.
P Prasanna Kumar, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) told the court that the four accused were not co-operating in the investigation and sought four more days of police custody. The SPP also said the victim’s mobile phone, which is a crucial piece of evidence in the case, is yet to be recovered.
Darshan’s advocate Ranganath told the media that the court granted two days of police custody for the four accused while the remaining have been remanded to judicial custody.
“The remand copy has not been given to us by the police and this has been brought to the notice of the judge. After checking the final remand application, we will file for bail at the sessions court,” Ranganth added.
The Vijaynagar sub-division police arrested 17 accused in the murder case. Renukaswamy, who was kidnapped from Chitradurga, was murdered on June 8 at a shed in Pattanagere in RR Nagar and the body was disposed in the Sumanahalli stormwater drain in the wee hours of June 9.
Four accused claiming responsibility for the murder had surrendered before the police on June 10. The next day, Darshan was arrested from Mysuru and his close acquaintance P Pavithra Gowda was arrested from her residence in RR Nagar.
BBMP notice to K Jayanna
The BBMP’s RR Nagar division has issued a notice to K Jayanna, owner of the shed in Pattanagere where Renukaswamy was murdered, for not paying property tax since 2008. Jayanna has been given 15 days time to reply to the notice along with the documents and the reasons for not paying the tax.
