BENGALURU:
An NDPS special judge hearing the celebrity drug racket case received a threat letter and a parcel with a detonator on Monday, demanding grant of bail to two film actresses and those booked in the August 11 violence here, a senior police official said on Monday.
“We have taken up investigation,” he told PTI, requesting anonymity. According to top police sources, a parcel from the district headquarters town of Tumakuru and the letter addressed to the Special Judge hearing the drug case, in which some bigwigs of Karnataka, including film actresses Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani are among the accused, was found outside the court.
When the staff opened it, they found a suspicious object and informed police, whose bomb disposal squad confirmed it was a detonator, the sources said.
The person who wrote the letter demanded that bail be granted to the actresses and that the ‘innocent’ people arrested in the August 11 violence at KG Halli and D J Halli areas here be immediately released and warned that a blast would be triggered if the demands were not met.
More than 15 people, including the actresses, a few Nigerians, realtors and rave party organisers have been arrested so far in the drug case. Three people were killed after police opened fire on August 11 night to quell a mob that went on a rampage in a city locality, irked over a social media post allegedly put out by a Congress legislator’s relative.
Scores, including around 50 policemen, were injured in the violence, apparently triggered by the online post. Pulakeshi Nagar MLA Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy’s home and a police station awere among those targeted by the angry mob. The house of the MLA, who was not at home at the time, was allegedly set on fire.
The rioters also torched many police and private vehicles, badly damaged the house and looted the belongings of MLA Murthy and those of his sister. So far, 421 people have been arrested, including Social Democratic Party of India leader Muzammil Pasha.
