City police chief keeps a promise made to slain RTI activist's parents

Mangaluru: It was a personally satisfying moment for city police chief M Chandra Sekhar to announce the arrest of Naresh Shenoy, main accused in the m urder of RTI activist Vinayak Baliga. Reason for this satisfaction is a solemn promise that he made to the aged parents of the victim that he will bring the culprits to book and being able to deliver on it.It was a different matter that Naresh managed to evade city police for more than 90 days before being nabbed.
Chandra Sekhar told TOI, "I have fulfilled a promise that I made to his parents when I visited them after the incident. It will now be our endeavour to ensure that charges against the accused stand in the court and the accused get punishme nt due to them." The city police have already filed a chargesheet against the six accused excluding Naresh before the Third JMFC Court on Thursday and will now have to file a supplementary chargesheet citing Naresh's role in the murder.
Pointing out that preliminary investigation has indicated that Naresh has destroyed evidence, Chandra Sekhar said police received important inputs from many well-meaning people, which helped them work on the case assiduously.
"Now the focus will be to file a quality chargesheet that results in the conviction," he said, adding it was the persistence and perseverance of police that forced Naresh to change his hideout almost every second day.
Any person who has harboured Naresh since he was on the run and helped him evade the law will be booked under section 212 of IPC. Naresh was constantly changing hideouts and was in Jammu and Kashmir, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, in areas bordering Nepal before he was finally arrested at Hejamady. "We ensured he could not leave the country by promptly issuing a lookout circular at all international exit points and this ensured he had to hide within the country," he said.
Sources privy to the manhunt for Naresh told TOI that he is a psychological wreck and police will have to take the investigation involving him one step at a time. "His testimony is vital to the case for it was he who planned and financed the murder," the sources said. Even Chandra Sekhar admitted that police made things so hot that Naresh could not stick to any one place and was forced to constantly be on the run. "It is this which could have broken him down," sources said.