Hindutva hardliner Kundapura was held for cheating Industrialist Govinda Babu Poojary of ₹5 crore with a promise of BJP MLA ticket.
Hindutva activist Chaitra Kundapura and her seven associates arrested for duping industrialist of Rs 5 crore.
“You are just 23 percent. If you can show such arrogance, imagine how arrogant we Hindus, who are 70 percent, should be?” This is among the most famous and reiterated lines by Hindutva hardliner Chaitra Kundapura — a sort of a “hate speech celebrity” in coastal Karnataka.
It was perhaps this celebrity-like status she enjoys among Hindutva outfits that made Industrialist Govinda Babu Poojary believe she can get him a BJP ticket to contest from Byndoor constituency in the recently-held Assembly elections in the state.
Poojary learnt it wasn’t so, the hard way, after losing ₹5 crore. He filed a police complaint following which an FIR was registered against several persons, including Chaitra Kundapura, who went absconding immediately.
As for Chaitra Kundapura — a Hindutva activist who rose to fame with her hateful speeches against Islam and Muslims with recurring themes of threats, intimidation, abuse peppered with “Love Jihad”, “Cow slaughter”, “hijab”, and “azan” — the place she felt “safest” for her when an FIR was filed was the Muslim household of Suraiyya Anjum, a youth Congress leader in Udupi.
Chaitra Kundapura was arrested along with her two associates on the night of Tuesday, 12 September, in connection with the cheating case.
The Karnataka police said she and her associates allegedly duped the 44-year-old industrialist of ₹5 crore by promising him a BJP ticket from the Byndoor constituency.
Based on the complaint of industrialist Poojary, a resident of Haraluru of Southeast Bengaluru, the Bandepalya police on 8 September registered a case of cheating, impersonation, criminal breach of trust, pretending to hold any particular office as a public servant, criminal intimidation, and criminal conspiracy against Chaitra Kundapura — the prime accused — and seven of her associates.
The case was entrusted to the Special Inquiry wing of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) as the matter was sensitive and involved crores in money transactions, and also had political ramifications, a senior police officer told South First.
The CCB officials received a tip-off about Chaitra Kundapura’s presence at the Krishna Matha in the Udupi district of coastal Karnataka on Tuesday night.
As expected, when she came to the parking lot to get into her car, the CCB sleuths apprehended her along with two other associates, identified as Gagan Kadur and Srikanth Nayak Pelattur.
According to CCB sources, Chaitra attempted to swallow her finger ring while she was being arrested, but the women cops foiled her attempts. The police team subsequently took her to Bengaluru.
She and her associates were on Wednesday produced before a magistrate, who granted custody of the accused to the CCB officials until 23 September.
While tracking the accused persons in the case, the CCB officials also learnt that Chaitra, after learning that a case had been registered against her in Bengaluru, had taken shelter at Youth Congress leader Suraiyya Anjum’s house in Udupi.
The CCB officials have served a notice to Anjum to appear before the investigating officer to clarify her stand on offering shelter to an accused.
This is not the first criminal case for Chaitra Kundapura. She faces multiple cases where she has been accused of delivering derogatory and provocative speeches against minority communities, the police said.
Industrialist Poojary, in his complaint to the police, said Chaitra Kundapura and her associates took ₹5 crore from him over three instances on the pretext of getting him a BJP ticket in the Karnataka Assembly elections that were held in May. The accused conspired for five to six months, a senior police officer told South First.
According to CCB officials, Poojary came in contact with Chaitra Kundapura in June 2022. She posed as a social worker from the Billawa community and flaunted her proximity with the RSS and BJP leadership, they added.
Poojary expressed interest in contesting the Karnataka Assembly elections, and was reportedly asked to go to a government guest house in Chikkamagaluru.
There, he was introduced to one Gagan Kadur, who was said to be the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) general secretary for Chikkamagaluru, an influential person with the BJP high command.
Poojary said in his complaint that Gagan Kadur also claimed he knew people from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Union home minister’s office.
Kadur allegedly assured him that he would try to get an MLA ticket for the industrialist through a senior RSS leader named Vishwanath ji, a native of Chikkamagaluru, who lived in North India.
On 4 July, 2022, both Chaitra and Kadur facilitated a meeting between Poojary and Vishwanath ji. Poojary was told Vishwanath ji was a member of the BJP’s Central Election Committee and also a coordinator between the RSS and the BJP.
Vishwanath ji allegedly asked Poojary to give ₹50 lakh to Gagan Kadur before the process of choosing the MLA candidates began. Once it began, he would have to pay ₹3 crore, the industrialist said in the complaint.
Vishwanath ji also assured Poojary that if he was not chosen as a candidate, all his money would be returned, and the guarantor was none other than Chaitra.
On 7 July, 2022, Poojary gave Gagan Kadur ₹50 lakh in front of the Shivamogga RSS office, he said in the complaint.
Chaitra subsequently organised a conference call, during which Vishwanath ji allegedly said the BJP central leadership had confirmed that Poojary would get an MLA ticket from the Byndoor constituency.
In September 2022, in another conference call involving Chaitra and Kadur, Vishwanath ji directed Poojary to meet a matha seer named Abhinava Halasree whose recommendation apparently played a vital role in the decision on a BJP ticket being given for the Byndoor constituency.
Poojary said in his complaint that he then met with the seer, who asked him for another ₹1.5 crore and also told him that he was in touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.
On 23 October, Chaitra and Gagan Kadur met Poojary and told him that it was time for him to pay ₹3 crore as his name featured in the list of ticket aspirants discussed by the BJP’s Central Election Committee. They apparently told him that the money had to go to one Surendar ji, who is also a member of the BJP’s Central Election Committee.
On 29 October, Poojary paid ₹3 crore to Chaitra and her associates while they were on a conference call with Vishwanath ji.
Later, Abhinava Halasree, the matha seer, reminded Poojary to pay ₹1.5 crore to confirm the ticket. Poojary said in his complaint that he met with the seer in Bengaluru on 16 January and paid the sum.
However, on 8 March this year, Poojary received a phone call stating that Vishwanath ji had died of respiratory ailments in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sensing something amiss, Poojary checked with one of his friends, who is a retired defence officer in Kashmir. He confirmed to Poojary that there was no RSS leader or campaigner by the name of Vishwanath ji there.
In April, Poojary called Chaitra Kundapura and Gagan Kadur to his office and asked them to return his money.
According to Poojary, they told him that ₹3.5 crore was with Vishwanath ji. When he said he would file a police complaint, Chaitra allegedly said she would attempt suicide and file a case against him.
The next day, Poojary met with the seer and asked him to return his ₹1.5 crore. The seer not only assured him that he would return the money, but also requested him to keep him out of the issue.
However, according to the complaint, the seer returned only a paltry sum, saying the rest would be returned later.
To get to the bottom of the matter, Poojary contacted a friend named Manjunath, who is also a right-wing activist in Chikkamagaluru, and sought his help in identifying the person who called himself Vishwanath ji.
Manjunath did his groundwork and learnt that Vishwanath was actually an unemployed person named Ramesh who was offered ₹1.2 lakh to impersonate an RSS leader and given training to act like one.
Poojary, through Manjunath, also learnt that Surendar ji was actually one Srikanth Nayak Pelattur, who worked as a Kabab vendor in the KR Puram area of Bengaluru.
Armed with all the information, Poojary once again confronted Chaitra Kundapura and Gagan Kadur, but she threatened him back, saying she knew several judges and would put him behind bars, according to his complaint.
When Poojary did not budge and kept demanding his money back, she said she knew people from the underworld, and threatened to have him “eliminated”. It was then that Poojary decided to approach the police for help.
The CCB police have arrested six out of the seven accused, including Chaitra Kundapura and Gagan Kadur, a local politician in Chikkamagaluru.
They are also probing whether these people were involved in similar crimes.
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