Mysuru: The case of the defamatory social media post targeting a religion, which triggered stone-pelting incidents in Udayagiri Police Station limits earlier this week, has taken a fresh twist and a conspiracy angle has emerged.

New information suggests that some employees at the dry fruits packing unit owned by accused, Satish alias Panduranga, may be behind circulating the post. Satish, a wholesale dry fruits vendor, operates the unit — Satish Dry Fruits — in Kalyangiri, employing over 300 workers.

Sources reveal that a few employees, considered close to the owner, forwarded the post to Satish’s mobile phone, took a screenshot and uploaded it to Facebook. Notably, some trusted employees regularly used Panduranga’s phone for business activities. There is a strong suspicion that these employees deliberately shared the post from Panduranga’s mobile phone, intending to shift the blame onto him.

As the incident escalated into large-scale violence, Police seized Panduranga’s mobile phones and launched an investigation which uncovered that certain workers at the packing unit were responsible for the act.

Following this, CCB Police have intensified their search for the suspected employees. Sources indicate that the inflammatory post was deliberately sent from the employer’s phone to a Facebook account with a criminal intent of causing business losses and implicating him in the case.

Undercover officers have been deployed at Panduranga’s dry fruits unit, residence and regular haunts in Kalyangiri. Meanwhile, many employees from the unit were brought in for questioning as the investigation progresses.