Case registered against one more person in "fake" letter case

A case was registered Monday against a woman for allegedly sharing on her Facebook page the 'fake letter' purportedly written by State home minister M B Patil to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi two years ago on religious minority tag to the Lingayat sect.

Sharada 'Diamond' is the fourth person to come under thepolice scanner in the last five days for allegedly sharing and talkingabout the letter, according to police sources.

Police said the case was registered against her under the Information Technology Act-2008 based on a complaint by J Saravana.

The post has been removed but the content is now part of the FIR registered by Srirampura police in the city, according to police.

Patil had termed the letter fake and alleged that it was a conspiracy against him by his rivals.

A journalist Hemanth Kumar, who is reportedly a BJP sympathiser, has already been arrested for allegedly circulating the 'fake letter' though social media.

Prior to this, a BJP woman supporter fromHubballi, Shruti Bellakki, was arrested for allegedly circulating a video in which she is seen purportedly appealing to Lingayats to be cautious about the "conspiracyagainst Hinduism" to divide it by giving religion tag tothe Lingayats for political gain.

Police had also detained Mahesh Vikram Hegde, the founder of a rightwing news portal, and have beenquestioning him in connection with the letter, which hadallegedly first surfaced on his website.

The 'letter' had first emerged during the Karnataka assembly polls in 2018 and resurfaced during the current Lok Sabha election with BJP first publishing it on its Twitter handle.

Patil, who was the water resource minister in the previous Siddaramaiah government, had spearheaded the campaign for separate religion tag to the Lingayat sect, founded in the 12th century by social reformer Basaveshwara.

Ahead of Assembly polls, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government passed a resolution recommending religious minority tag to Lingayat sect and sent the proposal to the Centre.

The Centre had turned down the proposal.