Journalist held for circulating 'fake letter'

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Bengaluru: A journalist was arrested on Saturday for allegedly circulating a "fake letter," purportedly written by home minister M B Patil to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi in 2017 on religion tag to the Lingayat sect.

Patil had termed the letter fake and alleged that it was a conspiracy against him by his rivals. Inspector General of Police CID, economic offence wing and cybercrime Hemant Nimbalkar told PTI that Hemant Kumar was arrested here Saturday. Kumar is a special correspondent of a Delhi based English and Hindi magazine. Police in a release said Hemanth Kumar was arrested, "based on credible evidence corroborated by oral statement." He was produced before a court, which granted police custody of Kumar till April 30, it said.

The 'letter' had first emerged during the Karnataka assembly elections in 2018. It resurfaced during the current Lok Sabha election with BJP first publishing it on its Twitter handle on April 15. Condemning the arrest, a delegation of BJP leaders, led by MLAs Arvind Limbavali and Suresh Kumar submitted a memorandum to the Director General of Police Neelamani M Raju.

Later, speaking to reporters, Limbavali alleged that all those supporting the BJP and working for the party during the election are being targeted at the instance of home minister. Police barged into the office and arrested Hemanth Kumar, who is a BJPsympathiser, he said. Patil has repeatedly termed it a fake letter, but it kept resurfacing time and again. When it came up again, Patil, as home minister, took serious note of it.

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