Hindutva activist Chaitra Kundapura and her associate Srikanth were granted bail on Tuesday, December 5 by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Bengaluru. They were accused of cheating a businessman of Rs 5 crore after promising him a BJP ticket to contest the Assembly election.
Chaitra Kundapura was arrested on September 13 on charges of defrauding a businessman named Govind Babu Pujari. The accusation revolved around promises of securing a BJP ticket for Pujari to contest in the Karnataka Assembly elections. Chaitra, known for delivering inflammatory speeches targeting the Muslim community, was held on charges related to dubious financial transactions that spanned from July 2022 to March 2023.
According to the FIR, Govind Babu Pujari became suspicious when Chaitra claimed that the funds were held by an RSS leader named Vishwanath, who, upon investigation, was found to be non-existent. Following this revelation, Chaitra and her associate Gagan Kadur disappeared, leading Govind Babu to seek police intervention. Gagan Kadur, the secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in Chikkamagaluru, remains at large.
The complainant also alleged that he handed over Rs 1.5 crore to a seer named Abhinava Halasri, the head pontiff of the Halashri Mutt in Vijayanagara. Halasri was arrested near Cuttack in Odisha a week later and obtained a gag order from a civil court against defamatory media reportage. Chaitra, after her arrest, claimed that the involvement of prominent leaders in the fraud would be revealed upon the arrest of the Halashri seer.
The court has granted bail to Chaitra and Srikanth with certain conditions, including the furnishing of two sureties and a Rs 2 lakh bond each.