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The Indian actor arrested for fan murder

Darshan Thoogudeepa is a big name in the Kannada film business in Karnataka, which is in the southern part of India.

He has been in jail for ten days for a crime that sounds like the story of a movie.

 

He is one of 17 people arrested by police for killing Renukaswamy, a 33-year-old star fan whose body was found in a drain.

 

This week, B Dayananda, the police commissioner for Bengaluru city, said that Renukaswamy was "killed in a ruthless and barbaric way." He also said that it was a "heinous crime committed horrifically."

 

Police say they think the 47-year-old star was mad at Renukaswamy, who worked for a drug business because he sent sexy messages to Pavithra Gowda on social media.

The Indian press has said that she is Darshan's girlfriend. She is one of the people taken.

 

The suspects are being charged with "murder, kidnapping, destruction of evidence, and criminal conspiracy."

 

Darshan is in jail and has not said anything about the claims, but his lawyer, Ranganath Reddy, told the TGE that the star denied the charges against him in their talks.

 

Right now, these are just accusations, he said. The police have no direct proof that Darshan did anything wrong.

There is only weak proof in this case. He also noted that the claims that Pavithra was married to Darshan were "blatant lies."

 

Darshan has been in about 60 films, many of which have been big hits. He is considered the most bankable star in the Kannada film business.

 

Many people love him and think he is the biggest star in Kannada films. "His face is plastered behind auto-rickshaws, and fans pour milk on his billboards when his new movies come out," says film critic S Shiva Kumar.

 

Kannada film director Yogish Dwarakish says that Darshan is "one actor who can promise you a great opening."

"His films appear on 600 to 700 screens in 400 theatres." People love him a lot. He always does what he says he will do. His most recent movie, Kaatera, made over one billion rupees ($12m; £9.4m) and was a huge hit.

 

Reports say he charges 200 to 250 million rupees for a part of the film, which is a considerable amount in the local film business, where most films still need to be shown in the southern states nearby.

 

So it is not a surprise that Darshan's arrest and what happened afterward have been in the news a lot in the state since June 11, when police showed up at the hotel in Mysuru city where he was staying while filming his latest movie, Devil.

 

Officially, the police are not saying what proof they have against the star and the other suspects, if any. However, the local press has covered wild claims from police sources.

 

Television stations have shown fuzzy CCTV video and said it shows Renukaswamy being taken away.

 

The press went crazy when they heard that Darshan's shoes from the night of the murder were found in his wife Vijayalakshmi's house, which led Vijayalakshmi to get a restraining order against the press.

The post-mortem findings regarding the deceased man have been extensively discussed in great detail.

People are also interested in Darshan's personal life, such as his relationship with his wife, Vijayalakshmi, and Pavithra Gowda. Stories about how he behaved in the past keep coming up in the news and on social media.

 

In January, Pavithra wrote on her Instagram account about being in a relationship with the star for ten years. Since they were arrested, the post has gone viral.

 

His father, Srinivas Thoogudeepa, was an actor who became "very popular and successful playing negative roles" in the 1970s. Darshan is his son.

For thirty years, producer Yogish has known Darshan. He says that the actor went through a lot of hard times as a child after his father died and left the family poor.

 

For 150 rupees a day, his first job was as a lighting crew member on a film set for a photographer.

 

However, "the muscular young man with an intimidating presence" was told to face the camera, and he began playing small parts in films and on TV, according to Mr Shiva Kumar. His big break came in 2002.

 

"He became famous overnight with Majestic, in which he played a likable bad guy who was the opposite of a hero. The role made him a star."

 

Muralidhar Khajane, a film expert and author of a book on Kannada cinema, says it also made him a huge fan base. "He turned into a hero for people on the edges of society." They felt like they knew Darshan.

 

He was "humble, hardworking, and disciplined" when he was young, says Mr. Yogish, who worked with him on a movie in 2005 and 2006. "At the time, I thought he would become a huge hit with everyone." He did it.

 

Mr. Shiva Kumar says that his films were "very average," that his parts were repeated, and that his acting was "wooden," but that he made much money as an action star.

 

"In many of his films, his character was the underdog and had a backstory that made him the right person to break the law."

 

He ruled the business for over ten years, along with Kichcha Sudeepa, Puneeth Rajkumar, and big Kannada stars.

 

As long as he kept making hit films, his fans called him "D-Boss" (the boss) and a "challenging star" because "nothing came easy to him; everything was a challenge," Mr Yogish explains.

 

"But he could not handle this fame and did not know how to act when success came his way," says Mr. Khajane.

 

There were four weeks of jail time for the star in 2011 after Vijayalakshmi accused him of domestic abuse. According to news stories from the time, her police report said that Darshan hit her, threatened her with a gun, and burned her with cigarette ends.

 

"Even though her injuries were obvious, the industry and his fans supported him." When his movie Saarathi came out while he was in jail, it was a huge hit.

 

His wife dropped the charges against him, which some say was part of a deal made by the business.

 

"After he came out, he went on a kind of Thanksgiving tour around the state to apologise to his fans." He said, "Please forgive me; I have set a bad example."

 

Mr. Khajane says that after the incident, some people in the business "who had supported him earlier started pulling away from him," but that did not change how well he did at the box office.

 

Aside from the serious charges he faces, the acting community has been mostly quiet about the case, with only a few stars coming out publicly.

 

According to Mr. Khajane, the silence may sometimes be due to business concerns.

 

"The business world is quiet because 1.5 billion rupees depend on him." Three of his films must be pushed back or put on hold if he goes to jail. They do not have the money to ban him.

 

Darshan's arrest is "a huge loss for the industry," but Mr. Yogish says that calls for a ban are too soon because "he is still being investigated, and a man is innocent until proven guilty."

 

"All I ask is for a legal trial, not a media trial." I am not saying he is not guilty, but Darshan is being made out to be a bad guy, and he has been found guilty before even being tried.