24-year-old song writer held for sending threat messages to Salman Khan
Mumbai, Nov 12: Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested a budding song writer for allegedly sending threat messages to Bollywood actor Salman Khan and demanding Rs 5 crore from him in the name of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, an official said.
Sohail Pasha, held from Raichur in Karnataka, wanted a song written by him to become famous and used this ploy for the purpose, police claimed.
The WhatsApp helpline of Mumbai traffic police on November 7 received multiple messages stating that the sender was a member of the Bishnoi gang, and Salman Khan would be killed if he did not pay Rs 5 crore.
They would also kill the writer of the song "Main Sikandar Hun", the sender warned.
The crime branch of Mumbai Police tracked down the mobile number from which the messages had come to Raichur.
Accordingly, a team was sent to Karnataka and Vyankatesh Narayan, who owned the number, was interrogated, the official said.
But Narayan's mobile phone had no Internet facility, he said.
Police then found that his phone had received a WhatsApp installation OTP. Narayan told police that on November 3, a stranger approached him in a marketplace and asked if he could have Narayan's phone for making a call.
Probe revealed that the man had installed WhatsApp on his own mobile by using Narayan's mobile number to obtain an OTP, the official said.
The crime branch team then zeroed in on Pasha at Manavi village near Raichur.
He turned out to be the writer of "Main Sikandar Hun" song mentioned in the threat, the official said, adding that he wanted to make the song famous and hence used this ploy of including it in a threat message to a famous person.
Pasha was brought to Mumbai and handed over to Worli police for further probe, the official said.
The traffic police helpline has received at least four threat messages for Salman Khan in the recent months.
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Karnataka Assembly bypolls victory: Shivakumar gives credit to CM Siddaramaiah's leadership
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday gave credit to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's leadership as well as the five guarantees for the Congress party’s success in the assembly bypolls.
Shivakumar said this victory was a prelude to the 2028 assembly election where the party would once again win.
The Congress won the Channapatna, Shiggaon and Sandur Assembly segments.
The by-elections were held on November 13 and the results were announced today.
The ruling Congress on Saturday retained its strong hold of Sandur, with its candidate E Annapoorna, winning the seat by defeating BJP's ST Morcha president Bangaru Hanumanthu.
In the Channapatna segment, Congress' C P Yogeeshwara won the high profile seat by defeating JD(S) candidate and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
Similarly, Congress' Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan won the Shiggaon Assembly segment by defeating former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai's son Bharath Bommai.
"Our guarantees, Siddaramaiah’s leadership and our workers and MLAs are responsible for our victory," Shivakumar told reporters.
He said neither Nikhil Kumaraswamy nor Bharath Bommai lost the election. In fact, this was the defeat of their parents -Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy and BJP MP Basavaraj Bommai.
"With this victory, our tally has now gone up to 138. There are other numbers as well, but I will not spell out how some people have internally supported us," Shivakumar, who is also Congress state president, said.
The Karnataka Assembly has 224 seats.
The Deputy CM advised his opponents to focus on development works instead of making baseless allegations as it would fetch them nothing but a constant defeat.
