Another setback to Darshan in Renukaswamy murder case, court extended police custody for two days

The Kannada actor, Darshan Thoogudeep, has been arraigned as an accused in the Renukaswamy murder case, which is under continuous investigation. The police custody of actor Darshan, actress Pavitra Gowda, and others in the Renukaswamy murder case ended today, June 20, and they were produced before the Magistrate Court. Darshan, Pavitra Gowda, and several other accused were arrested on June 11 for the murder of Renuka Swamy.

The police had requested that some of the accused, including Darshan and Pavitra, be sent to their custody for trial in today's hearing; after the hearing, though, the judge sent some of them, including Darshan, to two days of police custody and some of the accused, including Pavitra, to judicial custody. The magistrate court had ordered six days ago that they should be produced in the court by 5 pm on June 20. By 3:45 pm, all the accused were produced in the magistrate's court. There was a crowd of lawyers in the court hall. Ropes were tied and arrangements were made to control the people, but there was a massive stampede. The case came to the court's hearing, and today, one Darshan and three others were sent to police custody for two days by the Bengaluru court Thursday. The other three are Dhanraj, Vinay, and Pradosh, whom the court sent to police custody. At the same time, other accused, including Pavithra Gowda, have been sent to judicial custody. Last week, the police arrested Darshan and a dozen of his associates for having allegedly killed 33-year-old Renukaswamy, a fan of the actor.

Darshan, Pavithra, and other accused have been in police custody since June 11. The police have already taken Darshan and other accused to Bengaluru, Mysore, and Chitradurga and arrested them at other places. The police have so far seized about 118 items. Statements of several people have also been recorded, but some were requested to be sent to police custody as the interrogation and investigation are still pending. The police had filed a remand application requesting that Darshan, Vinay, Pradosh, Nagaraj, Laxman, and Dhanraj should be sent back to the police custody. As other accused, Pavithra Gowda, Pawan, Raghavendra, Nandish, Jagadeesh, Anukumar, Ravishankar, Deepak, Keshavamurthy, and Nikhil Naik had no objections to judicial custody, they have been ordered to be sent for judicial custody.

However, the remand petition filed to take Darshan back into police custody was opposed by his lawyer, who said that the trial had already been conducted for ten days. He also objected that he had not received the remand application. Still, the public prosecutor arguing on behalf of the police said that accused nine and, ten, fourteen were not cooperating in the investigation, and an investigation was pending based on the FSL report; therefore, he asked to take him on remand for the next four days. But the judge sent him to two days of police custody.