30-year-old techie with 70K monthly salary hangs himself over Rs 1.5 lakh loan

Udupi, Jun 24: Nearly four years after he was arrested in the murder case of NRI entrepreneur Bhaskar Shetty, the District Sessions court has granted conditional interim bail to Niranjan Bhat, one of the three prime accused in the case.

The development comes two days after the death of Niranjan’s father Srinivas Bhat(65). Though Srinivas and his driver Raghavendra were also arrested in the case on the accusation of destruction of evidence, they were released within a month.

Through his lawyer Niranjan had appealed to the court seeking bail to perform his father’s post-death rituals. 

After hearing the arguments, the court granted conditional interim bail till July 7 on furnishing a bond of Rs 5 lakh. The judge directed the accused to report to the court on or before July 7 to be taken into judicial custody.

Bhaskar Shetty, who owned a chain of supermarkets in Saudi Arabia, went missing from his house in Udupi on 28 July 2016. His mother Gulabi Shetty lodged a missing person complaint on July 29. The police arrested his wife Rajeshwari, her son Navaneeth and astrologer Niranjan Bhat on the charge of murdering Bhaskar Shetty and destroying the evidence, in Udupi on August 7, 2016. Rajeshwari is already out on bail. Navneet is still in prison.

Shetty was murdered at his house in Indrali and later his body was taken to Belman. It is alleged Niranjan Bhat had put the body of deceased Bhaskar Shetty in the pit used for Homa rituals and burnt it.

Belthangady, Jul 26: The forest department officials on Sunday banned traffic in Charmadi ghat section as a precautionary measure following information that landslide and uprooting of trees may take place due to heavy rain which has been lashing the ghat section since last one week.

The officials said that a tree was likely to be uprooted in the 6th and 7th cross of the ghat section therefore the entry of vehicles were banned and this has resulted in a traffic jam.

It is said that despite lockdown many vehicles have been playing in the Ghat section.

Puttur, Jul 7: A woman died after a wall of compound collapsed on her in Dakshina Kannada district on Tuesday, July 7. 

The victim was identified as Vasanti.

The wall got weakened due to heavy rain at Golithottu area in Puttur. Her body was sent to the post-mortem.

According to the police, the incident took place around 12.30pm when Vasanti was working in the backyard of her house.