Mangaluru (Karnataka), Aug 2 (IANS) The sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) are conducting simultaneous raids at 14 locations on Saturday across Mangaluru district in connection with Hindu activist and rowdy sheeter Sushas Shetty murder case.

Sources confirmed that the raids are being conducted at 10 locations in Bajpe and four locations in Suathkal towns. The raids are underway at many residences and offices at these locations. The authorities are conducting a search of the properties and verifying documents.

The murder case of Sushas Shetty has triggered revenge killings and a series of stabbing incidents in the coastal region, and communal tension threatened to spread to other regions of the state. The Karnataka Police had arrested 12 accused persons in connection with the case. Following the demand by BJP leaders and Union Ministers from the state, the Centre has handed over the probe to the NIA. The BJP has alleged a foreign hand and the role of the banned PFI outfit behind the murder.

The parents of Suhas Shetty have also emphasised that only the NIA probe could give them justice in the case.

Hindu activist Suhas Shetty was hacked to death on May 1 by a gang using machetes and swords. The killers who came in two vehicles had attacked him while he was travelling in his car with associates in the limits of the Bajpe police station.

The shocking video of the killing had raised concerns.

Suhas Shetty was a Bajrang Dal activist and the prime accused in the murder of Mohammad Fazil, a resident of Suratkal. Shetty and his associates had allegedly killed Fazil at a public place on July 28, 2022, in retaliation for the murder of BJP activist Praveen Kumar Nettaru.

Nettaru, a BJP worker from the same communally sensitive region, was hacked to death during the height of the ‘hijab’ row. The incident occurred in Bellare near Sullia in the Dakshina Kannada district. Nataru’s murder had triggered revenge killings and a spate of stabbing incidents across the state.

Suhas Shetty had come out of prison on bail in the murder case of Fazil.

Weeks after the killing of Suhas Shetty, a 42-year-old Imtiyaz, a pickup driver and secretary of a local mosque, was hacked to death in broad daylight near Ira Kodi in Bantwal taluk in Mangaluru as revenge for Suhas Shetty’s murder.

–IANS

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