NaMo Brigade founder arrested for murder of Mangaluru RTI activist

Three months after the murder of RTI activist Vinayak Baliga in Mangaluru on 21 March, the police on Sunday arrested Naresh Shenoy, the founder of the NaMo Brigade in Karnataka.

Shenoy had been absconding, and had been tracked through Jammu and Kashmir, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, and some villages along the Nepal border, but was finally caught in Mangaluru itself, said the police. Last week, the Mangaluru police had filed a 770-page chargesheet against him and six others, says The Indian Express.

Vinayak Baliga, an RTI activist, had been hacked to death on 21 March after he left his home to visit the Venkataramana temple. Among other issues, he was campaigning against the alleged misappropriation of donations to the Venkataramana temple. Sources say Shenoy was a close associate of the temple authorities.

Shenoy was the founder of a Narendra Modi support group before of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He wanted a BJP ticket in the next state polls. His name came up during the early days of the investigation after the Mangaluru police caught two men, Nishith Devadiga and Vinith Poojary, on 25 March.

Devadiga and Poojary turned out to be contract killers allegedly paid to kill Baliga by Srikanth Moolya, an employee of Naresh Shenoy. The police also seized a car linked to Shenoy as the suspected getaway vehicle, after which Shenoy went into hiding and applied several times for anticipatory bail.

According to the chargesheet, witnesses had seen Shenoy and Baliga argue over the latter's decision to go to court with evidence of the alleged misuse of funds at the Venkataramana temple.