SIT probing threat letters to Karnataka writers identifies school dropout as perpetrator

The Central Crime Branch announced Saturday that the accused, identified as Shivaji Rao Jadhav by a police source, was arrested Thursday. The police said they were questioning the accused to understand his motive in sending the threat letters.

Jadhav was a Davangere region office-bearer of the Hindu Jagaran Vedike, a youth outfit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and targeted progressive writers because they criticised superstitious practices and customs, police sources said.

“All the letters had the handwriting of one person. They were posted from different post offices in different districts of the state to avoid detection by the police,” the police said in a statement. “Apart from the seven cases that were registered, the arrest of the accused has prevented danger to the life of the writers. The accused has also issued threat letters to several others in the state. He has been taken into custody for 13 days to probe whether he was part of a conspiracy or acted alone.”

“He seems to have been a lone wolf but we are investigating further whether there was organizational support,” a police officer said.

The arrested man has a prior history of two criminal cases against him with regard to protests and activities of the Hindu Jagaran Vedike, the police said.

The SIT, headed by ACP Naveen Kulkarni, was constituted to investigate the seven cases filed by writers between 2022 and 2023. Police chief Alok Mohan issued the order for the formation of the SIT a day after a delegation of progressive writers met Siddaramaiah and sought a thorough investigation. Writer Vasundhara Bhoopathi told the chief minister that the writers had received around 15 letters, three of them after May, when the Congress came to power.

The SIT used human and technical intelligence and built on evidence that other investigators of the threat letter cases had found over the last two years. “There was a lot of work that had been done by the previous investigators and this helped the SIT crack the case within a month,” a senior police officer said.