Tumkur, October 15: SP Divya Gopinath said that the police have arrested total nine accused including main accused Sujay Bhargav in the former mayor Ravikumar alias Gadda Ravi murder case in the city.

Speaking to reporters here on Monday, the SP said that among the arrested, few of them were in judicial custody and others in police custody. Since 2013, both Ravikumar and Sujay were together. But in recent years, they developed enmity for some issues. It was found in the investigation that Sujay and his team killed Ravikumar for this reason. The police have been collecting more details. As Ravikumar was interfering in the business of Sujay, the latter had planned to kill him, she said.

Through one of his associate Rajesh alias Raji, Sujay had given contract to some rowdy-sheeters from Bengaluru and Mandya to kill Ravikumar. When Ravi was having tea at a stall, the accused got the message and came to the tea stall on a tempo and under the guise of purchasing cigarette, the tempo driver came to the tea stall and threw chilly power on Ravikumar. Later, seven accused who were in the tempo hacked Ravikumar to death. But so far, it was not confirmed who attacked Ravikumar on his head. After the murder, the accused fled the scene with the tempo and left the vehicle at Hanumanthapura cross and from there, they went in a car. The police would also interrogate the person who gave them the car to escape, the SP said.

Main accused Sujay has been facing total nine cases including Jaipura Krishna murder in 2004 and one atrocity case. Two others who were giving information to Sujay about the movement of Ravi were at large and they would be nabbed shortly, she said.

The police have arrested Sujay Bhargav alias Suji of Hanumanthapura, Raghu alias Chaddi of Bidirumale Thota in the city, Rajesh alias Raji of Kundur, Naveen of Devaraya Patna, K.L. Devaraj alias Devu of Kolala, Raghu alias Chiya of Basaveshwar Nagar in Bengaluru, Joman V. George alias George of Parvathi Nagar Laggere in Bengaluru, Jagadeesh B.M. alias Jaggu of Besagarahalli in Mandya, V.N. Mahesh alias Amase of Valagerahalli in Mandya district, she said.

Under the leadership of DySP K.S. Nagaraju, PSIs Raghavendra, Chandrashekar, Radhakrishna, Ramakrishnaiah, Ambareesh, Madhusudhan and Parvathamma led five teams, she said and hailed the efforts of the officers and staff in arresting the accused.



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New Delhi, Nov 12: The Delhi High Court has ordered cancellation of a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Ashneer Grover, the former MD of payment app BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, noting that the FIR lodged against them over allegations of cheating and forgery has already been quashed.

Justice Sanjeev Narula passed the order on Monday after the court was informed that another bench of the high court quashed the FIR on the same day.

The FIR was quashed by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh after considering a plea moved by the Grovers stating that they have arrived at a settlement with the fintech company.

In his order, Justice Narula said, "Although the copy of the order (quashing the FIR) is not available as of now, the aforenoted fact is not disputed by the counsel for the parties.

"In light of the fact that the underlying FIR has been quashed, the LOC issued by respondent No. 3 (Bureau of Immigration), in the opinion of the court, will not survive."

The LOC was issued by the Bureau of Immigration at the instance of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in view of the investigation against the Grovers in the cheating and forgery FIR.

The court was hearing a plea moved by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover seeking quashing of the LOC issued against them in connection with the investigation into the cheating and forgery case.

"Accordingly, the present petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to cancel the LOC against the petitioners in their records," the court noted.

Earlier, the Grovers claimed that they were informed about the LOC for the first time when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.

After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.

In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri, and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery), and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint was lodged by BhartPe, the fintech unicorn.

In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri, and destruction of evidence.

Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe before she was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities.

Subsequently, Grover resigned as the chief executive officer of the fintech firm in March 2022.