The Electronics City police on Saturday arrested Shivakumar Hirehala, 24, a friend of Dalit engineering graduate Daneshwari, who on Friday succumbed to burn injuries she had sustained on March 15. He was arrested near his residence on Saturday evening, said a police officer.
Shivakumar, a Lingayat, and Daneshwari, a Dalit, were classmates during their engineering course in Vijayapura and were reportedly in love. Her family has claimed that he refused to marry her as his parents were opposed to the marriage because of her caste. In their complaint to the police, her family members alleged that Shivakumar doused her with petrol and set her on fire when she went to meet him at his office in Electronics City on March 15.
However, it was Shivakumar who rushed her to the hospital. Before he absconded, he claimed to the police that she had set herself ablaze. “The accused has been taken into custody to ascertain the reason behind the incident. The events that unfolded on March 15 are not clear and there are many loose ends that need to be probed,” an officer said.
Daneshwari’s cousin who lodged a plaint of murder against him has also given a complaint under the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, sources said. An FIR has been registered and Shivakumar has been booked under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code for murder and SC - ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, police officials said.
