Man Accused Of Threatening Kannada Writers Arrested, Probe Underway

A man has been arrested from Davengere for threatening several writers and scholars in Karnataka. He is alleged to be a member of a right-wing Hindu group.

Over the last two years, Shavaji Rao Jadhav has sent threatening letters to a number of Kannada writers like BT Lalita Nayak, BL Venu, K Veerabhadrappa, B Jayapraksh, among others.

He had threatened them for going against Hindutva and told them to "count their days".

All the targets, along with other authors, approached Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and requested him to take action.

An FIR was registered and the case was transferred to the City Central Crime Branch. The Forensic team of the crime branch found in its investigation that all the letters were written by the same person but they were posted from different post offices and even from different districts.

"We have arrested him as he had posted several threatening letters to many Kannada writers. Seven FIRs were registered against him," said B Dayananda, Bengaluru Commissioner of Police.

Shivaji Rao Jadhav has been sent to 10 days' police custody.

The Security of some of the writers was strengthened in view of the murders of two prominent progressive writers in the past like Gauri Lankesh and MM Kalburgi.