Realtor, son held in Handibag suicide case

 The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Thursday arrested a realtor and his son in connection with the kidnap of private financier of Chikkamagaluru Tejas Gowda. The case is linked to the suicide of DySP Kallappa Handibag. The arrested are Naveen Shetty, 43,  the realtor and his son Ashwin Shetty, 19, both residents of RMV Extension in Sanjaynagar.

Tejas Gowda had owed Rs 25 lakh to Nataraj, who owned Kalmane Chits Funds. Nataraj had requested Visha Hindu Parishat leader Praveen Kandya to recover the money from Tejas. Kandya had hatched a conspiracy to abduct Tejas. A gang of seven, including Naveen and Ashwin, had abducted Tejas from Ayyanakere village on June 27. They had brought him to Benglauru and confined him at a dog breeding centre owned by Naveen Shetty in Sanjyanagar. The abductors had tortured Tejas and offered him dog food, said the police.

Handibag committed suicide as his name figured in the case. Naveen and Ashwin were at large after Handibag committed suicide. The police tracked them down at Gorur in Hassan district based on their mobile call details. The police suspect the involvement of Naveen’s wife Hemalatha in the case as she remitted Rs 1.5 lakh in Nataraj’s account in the first week of June. Two teams of the CID are searching for Kandya and Hemalatha in Delhi and Hyderabad.