All accused in temple firework disaster that claimed 110 lives get bail

Udupi, May 21: In a shocking development, as many as 27 fresh coronavirus positive cases were reported in the coastal district of Udupi today. 

Another shocker is, 16 among 27 covid-19 patients are children. The rest are six men and five women. 

Interestingly, all of them have inter-state travel history. 23 had come from Maharashtra and 3 from Telangana. Another one had come from Kerala to Manipal. More details are awaited.

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.

Mangaluru, May 27: Karnataka’s twin coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi today reported 11 and 9 fresh covid-19 cases respectively.

In Dakshina Kannada the covid-19 patients include seven women and four men who had recently come from Maharashtra.

One of the patients is a 3-year-old child. Others are girls aged 11 and 17, women aged 36, 37, 45, 59 and men aged 22, 35, 39 and 46.

All of them have been shifted to covid-19 hospital from different institutional quarantine centres. 

In Udupi too all the nine people – six men, a boy, and two women -  had come from Maharashtra a few days ago.