The police in Karnataka’s Ramanagara district near Bengaluru have arrested 13 men in connection with the murder of a Bengaluru businessman Vinod Kumar, who was incidentally a nephew of a Bengaluru corporator. The murder had taken place on Wednesday.

Among the 13 who were arrested is a self-proclaimed TikTok star known as TikTok Naveen or Smile Naveen, reported The Times of India. The police were quoted saying Naveen is a repeat offender who had uploaded more than 30 videos of him singing or saying Kannada film songs or dialogues.

The other accused included Manjesh alias Avalahalli Manja, Srinivas, Ravi alias Ravi Kiran, Naveen, Lokesh, Arif, Pavan, Mahesh, Madhu, Raghav, Vignesh, Sunil and D Madhu, said the TOI report.

Police further said that Vinod Kumar who had various other business interests other than real estate had recently started a stone crushing business in which his longtime friend a habitual offender Paramesh was heading. The investigators claimed that the murder was carried as a result of rivalry.

This comes after it was widely reported that the 32-year-old real estate businessman was hacked to death in front of his two sisters in the city outskirts on Wednesday. As reported earlier, the victim Vinod Kumar was the nephew of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike corporator Somasekhar from Anjanapura ward.

Reports said that Vinod had his visited his elder sister’s residence in Tataguni and the murder took place when they were returning home. Around eight persons who came on their bikes surrounded the cars and police said the victim was forced out of his car by the bike-borne men.

While the men left him bleeding, his two sisters rushed him to the hospital where he was declared brought dead.

The Hindu had quoted officials attached to Kaggalipura Police Station saying that the murder was carried out as a result of the land deals that Vinod Kumar he closed which possibly earned him a lot of enemies. Police had said they were also scrutinizing CCTV cameras.