The Bengaluru Police on Wednesday arrested a couple for allegedly murdering a 31-year-old man with an axe, stuffing his body in a rucksack and dumping it near the compound wall of a school. The Nandini Layout Police have arrested Murali* and his wife Seeta* for allegedly murdering Santosh, a cab driver.
On the morning of November 15, passerby near Mount Senoria School in Nandini Layout noticed a bloodied rucksack lying on the road and immediately called the police control room.
The beat constables, who were in the area arrived in a Hoysala, and opened the sack to find a dead body in it. A crowd had gathered outside Mount Senoria School by the time the police arrived. One of the onlookers, who knew the victim, identified him as Santosh. He immediately informed Santosh’s father Kalinge Gowda about his son’s death.
Kalinge Gowda had filed a complaint with the Nandini Layout Police and had cast suspicion on Santosh’s wife Yamuna and her mother Shyamala.
“The victim’s father had said that the couple used to fight a lot and that Yamuna and Shyamala always fought with Santosh for his failed investments. But both of them had alibis. His wife, Yamuna told us that there was a couple – Murali and Seeta, who had cheated Santosh in the past and cast her suspicion on them,” the Nandini Layout Police said.
Upon interrogating Murali and Seeta, the police found that Santosh had invested money in a chit fund run by the couple four years ago. When the chit fund company went under, Santosh allegedly lost Rs 1 lakh.
“Santosh used to keep asking for his money and when he did not get it, he captured videos of the couple having sex without their knowledge. He kept threatening to make it public and over the last few years, had extracted Rs 4 lakh from Murali and Seeta,” the police said.
Santosh allegedly began misbehaving and sexually harassing Seeta for the last six months. Investigators say that Santosh allegedly tried to force himself on Seeta a week before he was murdered.
“Seeta and her husband decided to kill Santosh to get rid of the harassment they were facing. On November 14, Seeta and Murali invited Santosh to their house. They hacked him to death with an axe, stuffed his body in a rucksack and dumped it near the school. They transported the body in an auto-rickshaw owned by Murali,” the police said.
The police have found CCTV footage of Santosh entering the couple’s house and of the duo loading the rucksack into the autorickshaw. “Initially, the couple had denied killing Santosh. But we got the footage and noticed that Santosh went inside but never came out. When we questioned them further, they confessed to killing Santosh,” the police added.
Murali and Seeta have been booked under section 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC. They have been remanded to judicial custody.
*Names changed to protect identity