A special court in the city has instructed the local police to initiate a criminal case against Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and Congress State IT cell head B R Naidu. This decision comes following allegations of their involvement in sharing a morphed image of a protest staged by BJP leaders.
The BJP leaders had organized a demonstration protesting the recent arrest of Srikanth Pujari, a Kar Sevak involved in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition agitation. During the protest, they displayed placards with the message "I'm also a Kar Sevak, arrest me too."
According to reports, the Congress IT Cell allegedly manipulated the content on the placards to portray it as a confessional statement of scams and irregularities. The altered image was then circulated on social media platforms, including from the social media handle of Shivakumar, who also serves as the Karnataka Congress chief.
Yogendra Hodaghatta, the state convener of the BJP Legal Cell, filed a complaint with the Special Court for MPs/MLAs, alleging that the post aimed to incite enmity between communities by using a false document. In response, the court directed the station house officer of the High Grounds police station to register a case under Section 156(3) of the CrPC.