As police hotly pursued him on Tuesday, self-styled cow vigilante Puneeth Kerehalli live-streamed a 14-minute video on Facebook from an SUV.
Kerehalli and four others have been booked for murder after they stopped and attacked three men transporting buffaloes from Mandya to Tamil Nadu on the night of March 31. Kerehalli accused the men of cow slaughter and asked them to go to Pakistan, according to an FIR.
One of them, Idrees Pasha, 39, was found dead lying on his stomach and legs curled up in Sathanur, a short distance away from where Kerehalli and his men had stopped him.
In the video, Kerehalli went on a tirade against Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy. In particular, he slammed Kumaraswamy and Siddaramaiah, who had criticised the government following Pasha's death.
Kerehalli claimed he was visiting temples when his phone ran out of battery. He said he learnt about the murder case after switching on the phone. "I will appear before the police... I will answer them legally," he said.
Kerehalli charged that political leaders got his Facebook live video deleted. It was proof that he was at the police station from 11.59 pm on March 31, he claimed, adding that the FIR copy was also tampered with.
He claimed that cattle are being transported for slaughtering right in front of Sathanur, Halagur and KM Doddi police stations. The animals are taken through Sathanoor as cow vigilantes are active on the Bengaluru-Mysuru route, he said.
A senior police officer said they were verifying the video posted by Kerehalli and seeking legal opinion to take necessary action. "We have got some clues on the whereabouts of Kerehalli and the other accused in the case. Three special teams have been formed to nab them," the officer added.
Meanwhile, the post-mortem report of Idrees Pasha is awaited to know the exact cause of death.
Published 04 April 2023, 18:29 IST