Naresh Shenoy, a powerful leader in the Mangalore city of Karnataka, who is believed to have close ties with the RSS, has been named as a key suspect in the murder of an RTI activist, Vinayak Baliga in Mangalore on March 21, reports Indian Express. This is bound to cause some major embarrassment to BJP because Shenoy, 39, is founder of NaMo Brigade, a youth organisation in Karnataka that was set up to create support for Narendra Modi in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The Indian Express report states that the police have launched a search operation to find Shenoy, after probe revealed that three of his associates were involved in the brutal murder when Baliga was hacked to death barely 75 metres from his home. On March 21, two men who came on a bike attacked Vinayak Baliga, 51, with sharp weapons as he was about to leave for his routine morning walk. He had more than 17 stab injuries on his body.

JUST IN: 51-year-old RTI activist Vinayak Baliga hacked to death in Mangaluru by unidentified assailants pic.twitter.com/zzb3rgILBb

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) March 24, 2016

The attackers escaped before one of his neighbours could come to his rescue hearing the screams. A CCTV camera in a nearby office captured the image of two men entering the lane on a two-wheeler, but the visuals were not clear. Baliga, an electrical contractor, had successfully sought out more than 90 RTIs, particularly helping the government in tracing electricity theft in the city. He had also helped several poor families in the city, who were deprived of their rights. Baliga, who was a bachelor, was living with his parents and three sisters.