BC Road Lavanya Murder Case: Mangaluru Police Book 11 Social Media Users

Share

Share

Share

Share

Email

Share

Mangaluru : The Mangaluru Police have cracked down heavily on digital misinformation by registering multiple FIRs against 11 individuals and several social media handlers for attempting to inject a malicious communal angle into the brutal murder of 21-year-old Lavanya at BC Road in Bantwal. Among those booked is Kiran Aradhya, a right-wing journalist associated with the ‘Samvada’ portal. An FIR was registered against Aradhya at the Bantwal Town Police Station following a formal complaint by social activist Muhammad Siraj M.U., who accused him of using his ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) handle to publish highly provocative and communally loaded statements regarding the tragic incident.

Investigation agencies revealed that after the murder, a photograph of the prime accused, Chethan, was digitally manipulated by several internet users who added a saffron shawl and a vermilion (kumkum) mark on his forehead. This morphed image was widely circulated alongside false narratives painting him as a trained leader of the right-wing outfit Bajrang Dal. According to the police, the fake image originally emerged from an Instagram handle named ‘troll_master._’ and quickly spread across Facebook via an account belonging to Udaif Anakkal. Anakkal’s post allegedly warned parents to keep their children away from the Sangh Parivar to avoid raising “monsters,” while falsely linking the accused to active right-wing militia groups. The distorted media quickly proliferated across multiple communication channels, including the ‘Yuva Belthangady’ WhatsApp group, ‘Padmaraj Padmaraj Pari’ WhatsApp group, and the Congress-affiliated ‘Youth Congress Belthangady’ group managed by Alija Alifa, alongside the ‘Facts and Justice’ group run by Rashid Laila 345.

To curb the rising digital unrest, the Bantwal Town Police filed separate cases under Section 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, which addresses the dissemination of false information intended to promote public mischief. Under Crime No. 97/2026, Shailaja Amarnath was booked for uploading the morphed image with a misleading caption claiming a Bajrang Dal leader had hacked a Hindu girl to death. Conversely, under Crime No. 98/2026, Chethan Belchada faced charges for counter-morphing the suspect’s photo to falsely project him as a Congress party worker named ‘Mohammad Sinan or Chethan’ in an attempt to target the ruling state administration. Furthermore, Harsha K. Shetty was booked under Crime No. 99/2026 for sharing a video in the ‘Sri Rama Sene Karkala’ WhatsApp group that insulted the Billava community by wrongly associating the attacker with them. Kiran Aradhya was formally charged under Crime No. 100/2026 for uploading the graphic murder footage with a caption detailing the attacker’s physical appearance and clothing to insinuate community linkages, while baselessly claiming the Congress government would quietly squash the case.

The genesis of these online flare-ups traces back to a horrifying real-world crime that took place on Thursday evening near the KSRTC bus stand at BC Road in Bantwal. The victim, Lavanya, a 21-year-old resident of Kakkepadavu, was waiting for a bus when she was intercepted and fatally assaulted with a sharp weapon in broad daylight. Moving swiftly, the police identified the assailant within hours as Chethan, a resident of Odilnala village in Belthangady taluk, who also happens to be a distant relative of the victim. Preliminary investigations strongly indicate that the heinous act was motivated by a suspected case of unrequited, one-sided love. A specialized police team successfully tracked down and apprehended Chethan near Vamanjoor on the outskirts of Mangaluru on Friday, and law enforcement agencies have launched an exhaustive probe to prosecute all digital miscreants manufacturing fake narratives to destroy regional communal harmony.