Bengaluru: Five held for blackmailing self-styled spiritual guru

BENGALURU: Central Crime Branch (CCB) police have arrested five men for allegedly blackmailing self-proclaimed spiritual personality Vinay Guruji.
Police said Vinay’s manager Prasanth Kumar had filed a complaint on February 28 against five men who had threatened to defame the former by uploading fake videos on social media if they were not paid Rs 30 lakh.
The arrested are C Ravikumar, 48, of Banakshankari III Stage; L Muniraju alias Muni, 61, of Kengeri Satellite Town; H Murali, 34; S Manoj Kumar, 24; and R Manjunath, 40, residents of Andrahalli. While Murali and Manoj work with a website as assistants, the others are small-time realtors.
Police have recovered CDs and a pen drive containing videos from the accused. Investigations revealed the accused had visited Vinay at his ashram in Gowri Gadde last year. They got to know that politicians and influential people, including businessmen, often visited the spiritual guru to seek his blessings. They concluded such visits would translate into a huge fund flow, CCB sources said.
“Several videos of Vinay’s preachings were uploaded on social media. Murali and Manoj knew how to edit videos and synchronise them with other voices. They readied one such edited video where Vinay is seen making abusive comments. They forwarded it to his manager Prashanth and said it had been sent to a few local TV channels. The duo demanded Rs 30 lakh to delete the video and stop channels from airing it,” police said.