Bengaluru stadium murder: 27-yr-old is second man accused in 2017 attempt to kidnap case to be killed

Both Aravind and Prashanth were part of a gang hired in May 2017 allegedly by N R Santhosh, then personal assistant to former CM B S Yediyurappa, to kidnap Vinay, police sources said.

Sources said Prashanth and Aravind’s murders were, however, not linked to the 2017 case. It was the result of gang rivalry, they said.

On the evening of February 27, 2019, Prashanth was killed at the entrance to Horamavu, in east Bengaluru, by a gang allegedly led by one Shivaraj. The gang had allegedly murdered Prashanth’s brother, Vinod Raj, and in retaliation Prashanth’s gang had attacked Shivaraj, according to police.

On September 12, Aravind was chased and killed in the city’s football stadium before an A-division women’s league match. On Wednesday, police said that four persons have been arrested in connection with the murder, including one accused named Stalin, who has a criminal record.

Sunday’s murder, according to police sources, was an act of retaliation for attacks allegedly carried out by Aravind and his associates on Stalin’s brother and their associates. There is, however, “no connection to the earlier cases and the murder of Aravind as far as we know”, a police source said.

One of the main accused in Prashanth’s murder two years ago is a man identified as Stalin Pushparaj, alias Stalli, who emerged from jail in 2019. Bengaluru police officials said Stalli is not one of the four arrested in Aravind’s murder case —Stalin.

In the May 2017 attempt to kidnap case, Prashanth was named in police chargesheet as accused number 3, and Aravind was accused number 9 – N R Santhosh, former PA of Yediyurappa and a former BJP youth worker, Rajendra Urs, were named accused number 1 and 2, respectively.

According to official records for the 2017 case, a group of men hit N S Vinay’s car on the evening of May 17 in an area under the jurisdiction of Mahalakshmi Layout police station in north Bengaluru. The men allegedly picked a fight with Vinay and tried to push him into a waiting car. Vinay foiled the kidnap bid by raising an alarm, according to the police case.

Investigation in the case led police to Santhosh, the then personal assistant to Yediyurappa – who was in the Opposition at the time – and a BJP youth worker named Rajendra Urs.

According to the chargesheet filed in the case by Mahalakshmi Layout police in 2018, Santhosh allegedly conspired with Urs and hired the services of Prashanth and his associates to stage an incident of road rage and kidnapping.

In July 2017, Prashanth and Aravind were arrested in the attempted kidnapping case.

Incidentally, in April 2017, a month before their alleged involvement in the attempted kidnapping of Vinay, Aravind and Prashanth had been named by Pulakeshinagar police in a case of preparation for dacoity. The two were arrested in that case only after their arrest in the attempt to kidnap case.