The city police on Thursday arrested five people in connection with the murder of 44-year-old rowdy-sheeter Shivaprakash in east Bengaluru’s Bharathinagar on Tuesday.

Former Urban Development Minister and MLA Byrathi Basavaraj, who was among five persons booked for the murder, has been served a notice to appear before the police, according to D. Devaraj, DCP, East.

The arrested have been identified as Kiran, Vimal, Pradeep, Madan, and Samuel.

A Bengaluru court on Thursday granted 10-day custody of the suspects to the police. Considering the gravity of the case, Prakash Rathode, Assistant Commissioner of Police, K.G. Halli, has been named as the investigating officer.

Shivaprakash, a rowdy sheeter and realtor, was allegedly hacked to death by a group of unidentified assailants near his house in Bharathinagar on Tuesday. The FIR was registered based on a complaint by Vijayalakshmi, the mother of the deceased, who witnessed the murder on July 15.  

According to the complainant, on July 15, around 8.10 p.m., a group of unidentified assailants attacked Shivaprakash when he was standing outside their house at Bharathinagar with his driver Imran Khan and friend Lokesh. When Imran Khan tried to rescue Shivaprakash, he was also attacked. She said she saw Lokesh filming the attack on his mobile phone. She screamed for help, and seeing people rush to the spot, the assailants fled, but by then, Shivaprakash was dead, the complainant said.

The complainant also said that Shivaparakash had been engaged in the real estate business, as part of Extreme Point (Promoters and Developers) Private Limited, for the past year. She said her son had gotten a General Power of Attorney (GPA) for a plot of land at Kothanur in 2023. He had built a shed and arranged for two women to live there as security guards. Then in February 2025, two men — Jagadish alias Jagga and Kiran — trespassed into the plot of land and threw out the two women living there. Ms. Vijayalakshmi claimed that later, Jagadish called Shivaparakash, threatening to ‘not let him be alive’ if he doesn’t transfer the GPA to his name, as it was “his area”.

Shivaprakash had also complained about the threats to the police. According to the FIR, he was allegedly murdered by eight persons who were instigated by the MLA for K.R. Puram, Byrathi Basavaraj. Mr. MLA Basavaraj has been listed as accused number five in the case.