Bajrang Dal activist who tweeted that another scholar "was next" after Kannada writer M M Kalburgi was murdered on Sunday, has four cases against him, including one attempt to murder.
Dakshina Kannada police arrested Bhuvith Shetty on Monday, a day after it filed a suo moto complaint against him for the tweet.
On Sunday, after news of Kalburgi's murder broke, Shetty had Tweeted from his account saying that after Kannada writer U R Ananthamurthy and M M Kalburgi, another scholar Mysuru-based KS Bhagwan “was next”.
Ananthamurthy died on August 22, 2014, at the age of 82 following a brief illness. Kalburgi was shot to death in his house in Dharwad district in Karnataka on Sunday. KS Bhagwan had remarked in February that he would burn a copy of the Ramayana as it was an "unholy book".
After Shetty’s tweet caused widespread condemnation on Twitter and traditional media, the Dakshina Kannada police filed a suo moto case against him on Sunday evening.
Bantwal Town Police arrested him on Monday afternoon. Sub-inspector Kumar told The News Minute that they had produced him before a magistrate who granted him bail.
This is not the first time that Shetty has had a run-in with the law. A total of four cases have been filed against him in the last two years, including one charge of attempt to murder, which is now in court.
In 2014, Shetty had been booked for attempt to murder after he attacked a Muslim cattle trader with a machete in Kalladka town in Bantwal taluk.
On Twitter he had claimed that he had chopped off the man’s hand. Bhuvith had told The News Minute that he had spent four months in jail in connection with this case.
Other charges against him include rioting and assault. One case, however, now stands void as he had been booked under Section 66A of the IT Act, which has been scrapped by the Supreme Court.