UP cops accompany mob dragging away a Muslim man before beating him to death

Bengaluru/Mysuru: Well-known Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa and 10 others have been arrested for the murder of 33-year-old from Chitradurga, Bengaluru police said on Tuesday.

S Girish, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), confirmed the development.

"We have taken him (Darshan) into custody for the murder of a man named Renukaswamy. The case has been registered at the Kamakshipalya police station. Ten more people have been taken into custody and we are interrogating them," Girish said and declined to give more details.

Police sources said that the 47-year-old 'Challenging Star' was picked up from Indiranagar (Ittigegudu) in Mysuru, his hometown, around 8:30 am. He is being brought to Bengaluru.

Renukaswamy's body was recently found in western Bengaluru's Kamakshipalya. There were injury marks on the head and other body parts.

Darshan, among the A-listers of Kannada cinema, has often been in conflict with the law but this is the most serious allegation against him. 

“CCTV was examined, and the victim was identified as Renukaswamy from Chitradurga,” the Bengaluru Police said.

What is the case?

According to sources, the preliminary investigation revealed that Renukaswamy had sent obscene messages to the actor’s girlfriend Pavithra Gowda.

Police sources disclosed that Renuka Swamy had harassed Pavithra Gowda. Following Pavithra’s complaint, Darshan allegedly instructed Vinay, an associate, to bring Renuka Swamy to Bengaluru.

According to the police, the victim, Renuka Swamy, was murdered on June 8. His body was found in a drain in Kamakshipalya, located in Bengaluru, on June 9. Mr Swamy, who worked for a pharmacy company, had sent "obscene messages" on social media to an actress close to Darshan, the police said. 

Mr Swamy was from Chitradurga, over 200 km from Karnataka's capital. 

Local residents reportedly alerted the police to the murder when they saw stray dogs dragging a body from the drain. Investigations led to the arrest of some suspects who allegedly directed the police to Darshan.

"He was my only son. Last year he got married. I spoke to him on Saturday only. I want justice," Mr Swamy's father Srinivasaiah said. 

Police have provided tight security at Darshan's RR Nagar residence in Bengaluru.

Tech mogul Elon Musk has sent a storm across social media after he tweeted that electronic voting machines should be replaced by paper ballots since he believes such devices are prone to getting hacked.

"We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high," said the Tesla CEO as he retweeted Independent POTUS candidate Robert F. Keddy, who in a post talked about voting irregularities in voting machines in Puerto Rico.

"Luckily, there was a paper trail so the problem was identified and vote tallies corrected. What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail?," Kennedy said.

"US citizens need to know that every one of their votes were counted, and that their elections cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference with elections," he further added.

Soon after Musk's post, BJP leader and former IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrashekhar took to X and said, "This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong."

He further added, "@elonmusk's view may apply to US n other places - where they use regular compute platforms to build Internet connected Voting machines.(sic)"

Chandrasekhar continued, "But Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media - No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet. ie there is no way in. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed.(sic)"

He even went on to say, "Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We wud be happy to run a tutorial Elon. (sic)"

Soon after, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi posted an image of a news article that says an individual had access to a mobile phone with which an EVM can be unlocked.

Rahul said in his post, "EVMs in India are a "black box," and nobody is allowed to scrutinize them. Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability."

The news report by Mid-Day reveals that the accused in question, Mangesh Pandilkar, is a relative of Mumbai North West MP Ravindra Waikar, who belongs to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

The article cites police officials as saying that the phone can be used to generate a one-time password (OTP) to unlock an EVM machine, and was used on June 4 inside the NESCO Centre. The phone in question has been sent for forensic tests.

Nagpur: The Nagpur district court on Monday handed life imprisonment to former BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd engineer Nishant Agarwal under the Official Secrets Act for spying for Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI.

Agarwal will also have to undergo rigorous imprisonment (RI) for 14 years and was also fined ₹ 3,000.

Additional sessions court judge MV Deshpande stated in the order that Agarwal was convicted under section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for an offence punishable under section 66 (f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA).

"The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and RI for 14 years under the Official Secrets Act and fined him ₹ 3,000," said Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani.

Agarwal, employed in the technical research section of the company's missile centre in Nagpur, was arrested in a joint operation by the military intelligence and Anti-terrorism squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in 2018.

The former BrahMos Aerospace engineer was booked under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the stringent OSA.

He had worked at the Brahmos facility for four years and was accused of leaking sensitive technical information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia.

Agarwal was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court last April.