Three months after Bengaluru violence, ex-mayor Sampath Raj arrested

BENGALURU: Three days after the Karnataka high court directed police to take all steps to arrest former mayor R Sampath Raj, an accused in the August 11 East Bengaluru violence, the Central Crime Branch sleuths on Monday night announced his arrest.
The Congress leader had been off the cop’s radar since October 29 when he got discharged from a private hospital.
On Tuesday, Raj was produced before a local court which handed him to police custody for three days.Police identified him as prime accused in the case of a mob setting ablaze the house of Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivasamurthy on August 11. Mobs had attacked two police stations, leading to lathicharge and firing.
Joint commissioner of police (crime) Sandeep Patil said, “We arrested Raj in the city on Monday night. We’ll question him in detail.”
A preliminary chargesheet filed by the CCB police on October 12 named Raj as accused number 51. Santosh Kumar, his driver, revealed how Raj hatched the plot and took the help of functionaries of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) to get mobs to attack Murthy’s house.
The CCB police had on August 18 arrested Raj’s associate Arun Kumar for his involvement in the same case.
Riots case: Ex-mayor will be in police custody for 3 days
Soon after, Raj got himself shifted to a private hospital, citing health issues. On October 14, Raj got discharged but on the same day, got admitted for Covid-19 in the same hospital. Finally, he was discharged on October 29 and he became incommunicado.
Many senior police officers had said tracing and arresting a former mayor shouldn’t be difficult. Finally, chief justice of the Karnataka High Court Abhay Shreeniwas Oka on November 13 questioned the delay of his arrest.
Close aide in soup
On November 7, CCB police arrested Riyazuddin alias Riyaz, a close associate of Raj. After Raj got discharged from Baptist Hospital on October 29, Riyaz took Raj in his car to a resort in Nagarahole, around 220km from Bengaluru. After five days, Raj shifted to another hotel near Mananthavady, a town on the Karnataka-Kerala border. A couple of days later, Raj moved to different hotels in Wayanad district.
The arrest of Riyaz was kept a secret and he was allowed to use his mobile. Not knowing that Riyaz was in police custody, Raj was in regular touch with him and this enabled police to track him down. Raj’s close associates reportedly advised him to surrender in the wake of the high court taking up the matter.