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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Delegation requests for Karnataka HC Bench in coastal districts, hands petition to Chief Justice
Udupi: A delegation of the High Court Bench Struggle Committee met and submitted a petition to the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru at the Circuit House urging the opening of a High Court Bench in the coastal belt as well as a Mobile High Court Bench in Mangaluru.
MLC and convener of the Committee Ivan D’Souza, who spoke to the Chief Justice on the occasion, explained that the people of the coastal belt find it difficult to travel to Bengaluru to fight a petition in the High Court. The problem only aggravated during monsoon. D’Souza added that there was a delay in clearing the cases of Udupi, Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts, which was causing further inconvenience to the people.
The MLC, who pointed out that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had also shown his preference for establishing a High Court Bench in the coastal region, requested for an approval to establish a Mobile High Court Bench first.
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Responding to this request, Chief Justice Bakhru assured to take action on the request as soon as possible.
The delegation included Mangalore Bar Association President Raghavendra HV, Dakshina Kannada Principal Government Pleader MP Noronha, General Secretary Sridhar H, Udupi Bar Association President Reynold Praveen Kumar, General Secretary Chandrashekhar Shetty, Vice-president Devadas V Shettigar and Brahmavar Bar Association President Kadoor Praveen Shetty.
