Kannada film actor Darshan, his girlfriend, Pavithra Gowda, and 11 others were arrested on June 11 on charges related to the murder of S. Renuka Swamy, a 33-year-old male fan from Chitradurga, who had allegedly posted derogatory comments about the actor’s partner. Swamy’s body was found on June 9, a day after the murder, in Bangalore. The victim was abducted on June 8 from Chitradurga.
Preliminary investigations indicated that the pharmacy store employee was tortured to death. Darshan and the others were remanded to six days’ police custody.
According to the police, Swamy’s alleged post against 37-year-old Pavithra on social media angered the 47-year-old Darshan who then got Swamy kidnapped. The actor and his girlfriend were reportedly present when Swamy was beaten to death.
Darshan was picked up from a star hotel in Mysore on June 11 and brought to Bangalore. The others arrested in the case are friends, associates and aides of the actor. Police are looking for four more suspects.
As per preliminary investigations, Pavan, who works at Darshan’s residence, created a fake Instagram account in Pavithra’s name and had been chatting with Swamy since two months. Trusting it to be Pavithra’s account, Swamy kept abusing her. Pavan showed these chats to Darshan. The abuses angered Darshan.
Some friends of Darshan kidnapped Swamy on June 8 and took him to Bangalore. They locked him in a shed and beat him up. In the evening, Darshan and Pavithra reached the shed where another round of thrashing started. Swamy died on the spot.
It is believed that Pavithra, a fashion designer and model, shot to fame because of her proximity to “challenging star” Darshan. She was earlier married to Sanjay from whom she got separated. The couple have a daughter. She later bagged a role in Kannada film Chatrigalu Saar Chatrigalu. She acted in three more lesser-known Kannada films after that. Meanwhile, Darshan drifted away from his wife, Vijayalakshmi. That’s when he came close to Pavithra.
It may be mentioned here that Darshan had been arrested in 2011 on charges of allegedly assaulting his wife. In 2023, his men allegedly unleashed ferocious dogs on a lady-advocate over a parking issue. Darshan’s farm on the outskirts of Mysore was raided by forest officials on January 20, 2023, in the wake of a video clip in which the actor is heard speaking about four bar-headed geese from Mongolia on his farm. The birds were rescued.