Bengaluru, Aug 14 (UNI) Three people, who had allegedly torched two cars of BJP MLA Satish Reddy parked at his residence were arrested yesterday evening.
"We have arrested three persons who had torched two cars parked at Satish Reddy's house," Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant told reporters yesterday.
Pant, however, did not give details about the reason for the accused of burning the cars of Reddy. "This will be known only after we interrogate the arrested persons," he said.
However, Reddy suspects it to be a conspiracy. "Nobody knows these culprits. Nobody has seen them anytime in the area. This looks like a conspiracy. It is not possible to carry out such an act in one day. It was planned days before," he said.
Earlier, he had denied any link between the controversy of the installation of the Shiva statue on Begur lake to the torching of his cars. He had said that he had convinced the rightwing activists not to do anything which will amount to contempt of court.
Some right-wing activists last week had gone ahead unveiling Shiva's statue, despite the Karnataka High Court upholding its 2019 interim order against the laying an artificial island and installation of the statue in the lake.
On the intervening night of Aug 11 and 12, the accused had come on a bike, entered the house, and torched the cars. After committing the crime, the accused escaped from the back gate. Though there is a CCTV camera installed, the police were not able to identify the faces.
"On August 12, we formed five teams to track down the criminals. It was not an easy task. There were CCTV cameras installed at the back gate of Satish Reddy's house, but we could not recognise the face of the accused. So, we sought the help of other officers and formed five teams to trace the culprits out," Pant said.
The police tracked down the accused by keeping an eye on the bike for committing the crime. "Though we could not identify the faces of the accused, the bike they used was identified and we kept a watch on it through CCTV footage. When we located the bike in the area, we laid a trap and held the culprit when he came to pick his bike. After interrogation, we arrested the other two accused," Pant said.
Further investigation is on.
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