Breakthrough In Hampi Vandalism Case: Four Arrested By Police; HAL Employee Among Accused

In a breakthrough in the recent case of vandalism at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi, police in Ballari district has picked up four men on suspicion of committing the crime, reports Bangalore Mirror.

The incident was uncovered through an Instagram video in which one of four miscreants can be seen pushing carved stone pillars on to the ground, with three accomplices cheering him on.

According to Ballari Superintendent of Police Arun Ranga Rajan, three of the arrested men are Bengaluru residents originally from Bihar while one belongs to Madhya Pradesh.

The social media video had drawn the public’s ire, with Indians demanding expedient action against the culprits. A complaint had also been filed by the Archaeological Survey of India.

Interestingly, all the four accused are well-placed professionals or reasonably educated; one was a HAL employee, another a digital marketer, while was still in an engineering college and the fourth was an unemployed graduate.

The police investigation was carried out on the basis of a telephone number believed to have belonged to one of the accused; the cops searched for Aadhaar records, Facebook accounts and other information using this one contact.

The address of one of the accused persons was traced through a Flipkart delivery message.

The accused were arrested from across different locations; two of them were caught in Bengaluru itself, while one was tracked to Madhya Pradesh and then to Bihar where he was finally picked up, and another member of the group was found in Hyderabad.

Police had formed four teams to travel across state lines to secure the four accused. It has also come to light that all the four alleged culprits are Hindus and have asked for protection.