In terms of gangland murders in Bengaluru, the July 15 murder of V G Shivaprakash alias Bikla Shiva, 44, who had a reputation for staking claims on disputed properties, was run of the mill – the victim was brutally hacked to death in public view with choppers and knives like in dozens of gangland murders in the city.
Shiva, who had more of a reputation as a real estate conman than a gangster, was hacked to death outside his house on a busy street in the Bharathinagar police limits at around 8.10 pm by a gang who had been watching his movements for several days.
The unusual thing about the Bikla Shiva murder case was, however, the naming of four-time legislator Byrathi Basavaraj, 59, who currently represents the BJP from the K R Pura constituency in east Bengaluru, as an accused within two hours of the murder.
The Bengaluru police First Information Report (FIR) in the Bikla Shiva murder case has named the BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj’s close associate and gangster Jagadish Padmanabha alias Jaga, 42, as accused number one (A1), three henchmen of the gangster as A2, A3, A4, and the MLA himself as A5.
While Bengaluru MLAs cutting across parties, who have been elected repeatedly over the last two decades, have been linked to the control of real estate activities through criminal gangs, especially in rapidly urbanising regions on the fringes of the city, elected representatives themselves have rarely been directly linked to gangland murders for dominance in the real estate business in Bengaluru.
The Bikla Shiva murder and its investigations have probably revealed for the first time the inner workings of real estate mafias in the city and their connections to political benefactors.
The land dispute leading to the murder
The investigations since the murder has found that the 44-year-old Bikla Shiva complained on multiple occasions this year to the Bengaluru police of being harassed by a gang led by former history sheeter Jagadish P alias Jaga, an associate of the K R Pura BJP MLA, over a 12 acre property on survey number 212, in Kithaganur, on the eastern fringe of the city.
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The Kithaganur area is a fast-developing region of east Bengaluru where the cost of land for an acre has gone from the range of Rs 8 to 10 crore to Rs 20 crore in the last couple of years, following the construction of a section of a Satellite Ring Road for the outskirts of Bengaluru which touches Kithaganur (NH 648). A section near Kithaganur was opened in March 2024.
BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj (left) and murder victim V G Shivaprakash alias Bikla Shiva (Express photo)
With the survey number 212 of Kithaganur emerging as a disputed property with unclear titles for the original owners, real estate players like Bikla Shiva and Jagadish allegedly swooped in to take control of the land and obtained general power of attorney (GPA) from the original claimants of the land.
In a complaint to the Bengaluru police in February this year, Bikla Shiva claimed that his friend (Parthiban) bought the land in 2023 from the original owner, Singa Reddy, and later transferred the GPA rights for the land to him. The rival gang of Jagadish alias Jaga is alleged to have obtained a GPA from a second branch of the family of the original owners.
Bikla Shiva alleged in a complaint to the Bharathinagar police on February 21 that the gang of Jagadish alias Jaga arrived at the property on February 11, 2025, and demolished structures like a boundary wall and a shed that he had constructed to claim the disputed property.
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Soon after the February 11 incident, Shiva allegedly began receiving calls from Jagadish to hand over the GPA for the land with threats of murder if he did not comply and the rival gang also allegedly threatened Shiva on February 20 outside a bank near his house.
The primary basis on which the Bengaluru police named the prime accused, including the BJP MLA of K R Pura, in the murder of Bikla Shiva, within a few hours of the murder on July 15, is the February 21 complaint of Bikla Shiva, a Bengaluru police officer said.
“On the basis of a February 21 complaint, the prime accused in the July 15 murder case was identified. Although a police FIR was registered at Bharatinagar on the basis of the February 21 complaint, the investigations were stalled by a high court stay order (on February 26) and the victim filed another petition in March in Ramamurthy Nagar,” police sources said.
According to the police, the name of the BJP MLA was added in the FIR after Vijayalakshmi, the 68-year-old mother of Bikla Shiva – who claimed to have witnessed the murder from the balcony of her house – said her son had been complaining about receiving threats from the close associates of the MLA. She later denied naming the MLA.
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Bengaluru police investigation
In the 10 days since the murder of Bikla Shiva, the police have arrested a total of 16 persons hired from the Kolar region to execute the murder and several henchmen of Jagadish alias Jaga from the K R Pura, Ramamurthy Nagar of east Bengaluru.
Kiran K, 34, and Vimal Raj, 31 – two key henchmen of Jagadish – Pradeep K, 27, Madan R, 27, Samuel V, 24, Arun Temu, 25, Naveen K, 24 are the men arrested for planning, watching over the movements of Bikla Shiva, and participating in the murder. The henchmen of Jaga – Kiran and Raj – are involved in multiple assaults and attempts to murder in east Bengaluru, according to their police records.
Five persons – Avinash Dinnahalli, Sudarshan, Murugesh, Narasimha, and Kiran – from Tekal village in Malur in the neighbouring Kolar district have been arrested for allegedly executing the murder. They were allegedly brought to the city and housed on July 14 to execute the murder on July 15. The core gang members of Jagadish provided cover and logistical support.
Murder victim Bikla Shiva (wearing a cap) was allegedly threatened by a member of the gang run by Jagadish alias Jaga who are accused of carrying out the murder. (Express photo)
“The four men from Kolar were hired with an offer of Rs 20 lakh each and were paid an initial amount of Rs 1.5 lakh along with the promise of life settlement. The persons who kept a watch on Bikla Shiva’s movements since February were paid Rs 30,000 each. A lot of investment has gone into the murder,” police sources said.
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The main accused in the murder, Jagadish alias Jaga, who featured in gangster lists in east Bengaluru till a decade ago – before being removed allegedly under the influence of an MLA – is alleged to have fled to Dubai via Chennai soon after the murder. CCTV visuals gathered from his apartment block show him leaving in an Audi car within 10 minutes of the murder.
BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj – who is considered the main benefactor of Jagadish alias Jaga’s gang in east Bengaluru – has meanwhile been questioned twice by the police about his association with the murder plot. “We have gathered technical evidence to link the MLA to the accused in the murder,” a Bengaluru police officer said.
The police have been investigating calls received by a personal assistant (PA) of the MLA from the mobile phone of Jagadish soon after the murder was executed as well as a series of calls in the run up to the murder between the PA of the MLA, two of the accused in the murder – the missing Jagadish and the arrested Kiran K – and Ajith Kumar, a former gangster associate of the MLA who was linked in the past to several real estate and other crimes in east Bengaluru.
“We are going to question several people who are associated with the MLA and the main accused in the next few days,” a police officer said prior to the case being transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Karnataka Police by the state government on July 24.
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The Bengaluru police have issued notices to A G Ajith Kumar, 45 – a known associate of Byrathi Basavaraju whose name was removed from the east Bengaluru gangster lists on the orders of the Karnataka high court in 2013; and to a personal assistant of the MLA whose mobile phone is suspected to have been used to make encrypted calls to the gangsters.
Police searches at the home of Kiran K, one of the henchmen of Jagadish alias Jaga arrested for the Bikla Shiva murder, are reported to have provided leads to Ajith Kumar.
Ajith Kumar, who is also known as Malayali Ajith and is now a lawyer, is considered a big real estate operative in east Bengaluru. Ajith Kumar and Jaga were jointly accused of the murder of travel agency worker Anil Kumar in K R Pura in 2008.
An associate of the duo, Chandrashekhar Achari, who was also accused in the 2008 murder and was aspiring to become a Bengaluru city councillor, was shot dead in Rajgad near Pune in 2015 by unknown assailants.
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“All these guys are alleged agents of the current MLA. They operate with impunity in the region. This is one of the most dangerous mafias in Bengaluru,” a former Bengaluru organised crime squad police official said.
“The real estate mafias have divided up the city for their operations. There is a gang leader for central and south Bengaluru, there is a gang leader for the west and northern parts, and they operate under the protection of the local MLAs. Some of them become white collar operators,” a serving police officer said.
In one instance in the 2018-19 period, the organised crime unit of the Bengaluru police was on the doorstep of a former K R Pura gangster, in order to arrest him for criminal activities, but was called back by senior officers, according to many police officers aware of the incident.
In the Bikla Shiva murder case, the Bengaluru police expressed intent to take investigations to their logical conclusion before the case was transferred to the CID on July 24.
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“The Bengaluru police have taken the issue of the Bharathinagar murder very seriously. This is a brutal murder. We cannot discuss the investigations in detail at present. We are working diligently to identify those involved in the murder,” Bengaluru police commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh stated on July 22.
Murder motive
According to police sources, the primary motive for the gang of Jagadish alias Jaga to execute the murder of Bikla Shiva was the perception that Shiva was a challenger to the lucrative real estate business being eyed by Jaga and his benefactors in east Bengaluru.
Bikla Shiva’s interference in disputed properties and tendency to raise complaints with high officials in Bengaluru was considered a hindrance to the real estate activities of the gang.
“The murder was essentially about area dominance. Bikla Shiva was like a rogue elephant who was interfering in the real estate activities of Jagadish in east Bengaluru while Jagadish (and his benefactors) were attempting to establish dominance,” police sources said.
One of the other provocations for the murder of Bikla Shiva by the gang of Jagadish, police sources said, was the emergence of a video on social media of a confrontation between Bikla Shiva and Jagadish. The video posted by Bikla Shiva portrayed Jagadish as a land grabber in Bengaluru, and this angered Jagadish, sources said.
In the video of the confrontation, Jagadish’s gang is heard speaking in Tamil and telling Bikla Shiva, who stands silently, that there can be only one Don for the region, and it is Jaga.
While Bikla Shiva was reportedly not involved in organised crime, he was part of the rowdy list in east Bengaluru for his real estate activities of creating fake documents and staking claim on properties with a small gang at his command.
Bikla Shiva himself was a partner in a real estate firm called Extreme Point (Promoters and Developers) Ltd and the owner of another firm called Peacock Enterprises. He was earlier linked to the MLA Byrathi Basavaraj but did not make it to his inner circle, police sources said.
One of the most high profile instances of Bikla Shiva’s fraudulent real estate activities occurred in 2018-2019 when he was accused of obtaining a prime property on the Ulsoor Road in the heart of Bengaluru after a gang used impersonation and forged documents to claim ownership of the land and an old house which belonged to a Dubai-based family from Kerala.
Bikla Shiva, who initially obtained the GPA for the land for Rs 50 lakh, is alleged to have sold the land for Rs 3 crore to a member of the family that owns the Prestige Group – Bengaluru’s biggest real estate company.
An FIR was registered against Bikla Shiva and others for cheating and fraud initially by the original owner, Jebby Joseph, in January 2019 and, subsequently, another FIR was filed in 2022 by Uzma Irfan from the Prestige Group on the basis of a court order against Bikla Shiva and nine others. The Ulsoor Road land was eventually sold by the original owner to the Prestige Group for Rs 6 crore, according to official legal records in the public domain.
Bikla Shiva was also similarly involved in 2018 in forcibly occupying a disputed property in Hennur in east Bengaluru with documents claimed to have been obtained in the name of his mother from a GPA holder for the land. He was evicted from the land following court orders obtained by the original claimant, Venkatarama Reddy.
On February 25, this year – shortly after Bikla Shiva had filed a complaint on February 21 in the Bharathinagar police station over threats received from Jagadish alias Jaga over the Kithaganur property dispute – the Bengaluru east police issued an order for detaining Bikla Shiva for violation of a bond dated March 26, 2024, and continuing in illegal real estate activities.
Bikla Shiva was accused of being involved in illegal attempts to claim properties in the Mahadevapura region in 2024, despite signing a bond before the police in March 2024 to refrain from involvement in illegal activities in the future.
Shiva approached a civil court about the February 25 detention order of the police, claiming the police had targeted him for filing a complaint against the Jagadish alias Jaga gang on February 21. The civil court rejected the plea on March 28.
BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj on being linked to the murder
Meanwhile, pictures have emerged in the public domain of the BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj in the company of the alleged gangster Jagadish alias Jaga at multiple events in the past. The MLA has denied any close association with the former rowdy sheeter beyond political acquaintance.
“I have already said that I am not connected to this crime. I am an elected representative and hundreds of people come to get their pictures clicked with me. No association can be drawn by my presence in pictures,” Byrathi Basavaraj said after the police quizzed him on July 23.
“There is an FIR and they have called me and I have replied to their questions. I do not know anything about the land or who this Shivaprakash is? If he had approached me earlier and told me that my people are causing problems, I would have spoken to him and tried to resolve the issues,” the BJP MLA claimed.
“He has gone and given an unsubstantiated complaint against me, but the police never called me for questioning or anything earlier. If the police had called me, I could have handled this earlier. Petitions were given (by Bikla Shiva) to the CM, DCM, Speaker, the DGP and police commissioner but nothing happened,” the MLA said.
Byrathi Basavaraj, who belongs to the OBC Kuruba community like Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, was initially associated with the Congress at the start of his political career. He was previously a city councillor from K R Pura, before he was elected to the legislative assembly for the first time in 2013 on a Congress ticket.
He was re-elected on a Congress ticket in 2018 but shifted to the BJP in 2019. Byrathi Basavaraj was among 17 Congress and JD(S) MLAs who toppled a Congress-JD(S) alliance government in Karnataka by shifting to the BJP in 2019. He was made the urban development minister in the B S Yediyurappa-led government after winning a K R Pura bypoll in 2019.
Basavaraj won the K R Pura seat for the fourth time in 2023 on a BJP ticket, but the BJP lost the assembly to the Congress. Basavaraj’s cousin, Byrathi Suresh, a close associate of Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and a Congress MLA from the Hebbal seat, got the urban development portfolio after the formation of the new government.
According to election affidavits filed by Byrathi Basavaraj for the 2013, 2018 and 2023 polls, his wealth has nearly tripled in the period that he has been an MLA, from Rs 46 crore to Rs 122 crore, with nearly Rs 85 crore of assets being in the form of real estate.
Byrathi Basavaraj is the second powerful Bengaluru BJP MLA to come under the scanner of the police for alleged criminal activities during the tenure of the Congress government. Last year, the BJP MLA from the RR Nagar constituency in west Bengaluru, Munirathna Naidu, who also switched from the Congress to the BJP in 2019, was arrested for rape.
In the Bikla Shiva murder case, there are suggestions of a political conspiracy and signs of another front being opened in the internal power struggles within the Congress as well. A CID probe ordered by the Congress government is seen as giving a breather to Byrathi Basavaraj from the danger of any immediate arrest for him and his close associates.
The argument of the prime accused
During arguments on July 22 in an anticipatory bail plea filed by the missing Jagadish alias Jaga, the advocates for the prime suspect argued that there was a “political conspiracy” to implicate the former rowdy sheeter in the Bikla Shiva murder case.
“There have been no cases against him since the 1990s. He was removed from the rowdy sheet for good conduct. There is only one cheating case that is pending,” senior counsel Aruna Shyam argued.
The state prosecutor opposed the bail plea on the grounds that Jagadish was involved in past murders and robberies and that he had become wealthy and politically influential in recent times. Granting bail would hamper the investigations, the prosecutor argued.
“The accused number one has a criminal background. His name featured earlier in the Hennur police station rowdy list. He has been involved in real estate activities. He has a history of involvement in dacoities, robbery and murder and has strong political backing,” the state said in submissions in the special court while listing 14 cases against Jaga from 1995 to 2016.
The special court for elected representatives rejected the anticipatory bail plea on July 24.