When cops reached a desolate spot close to the Kanva dam in Bengaluru after receiving data of a distraught lady crying over her husband’s physique, the whole lot pointed in direction of a homicide case.
However an officer’s eye caught two issues lacking from the scene – a bottle cap and a slipper. In keeping with a TOI report, cops discovered a person’s physique, his crying spouse, his automobile parked a couple of toes away, and an empty bottle of poison.
Nevertheless, it was when Police Inspector BK Prakash and Sub-Inspector Sahana Patil combed the spot and requested, “If he drank the poison and left the bottle subsequent to him, the place is the cap of the bottle?” that set everybody’s minds racing.
One other unsettling element – a lacking slipper – made even the Deputy Superintendent of Police (Channapatna) KC Giri marvel, “Why would anybody kill himself with one slipper on?”
That is when a surprising story of a well-crafted homicide and a suicide cover-up began to unravel. In actual fact, the cover-up story for the homicide was so nicely thought-out and executed, that when the spouse of the deceased convened a press meet, she wept a lot that a couple of media personnel had tears of their eyes, the TOI report mentioned.
A grisly story of homicide after which a cover-up
Police have recognized the deceased man as 45-year-old Lokesh Kumar, a resident of Krishnapuradoddi and former president of Makali gram panchayat. He owned two hen retailers, one in Channapatna and the opposite in Sunkadakatte. His spouse, Chandrakala, a gram panchayat member, was reportedly inconsolable after seeing her lifeless husband close to the Kanva dam.
Police’s suspicion grew additional when Lokesh’s household approached them with a chilling allegations in opposition to Chandrakala – she was having an affair with somebody and Lokesh had not too long ago found it.
Whereas this new data may have led the cops to research a murder angle, they determined to attend for the post-mortem report from the Channapatna authorities hospital, the report added.
“Although poison was confirmed as the reason for loss of life, medical doctors famous one thing uncommon. In circumstances of suicide, poison usually travels straight to the abdomen. However right here, a big focus was discovered within the chest, elevating suspicion of pressured ingestion,” SSP Srinivas Gowda advised TOI.
One other post-mortem performed at a non-public super-specialty hospital have been fixed with the federal government hospital’s post-mortem report – Lokesh might have swallowed the poison voluntarily or been pressured to eat it.
Name particulars, a black automobile, and placement knowledge assist cops crack homicide case
Cops then began reconstructing the sequence of occasions by interacting with villagers close to the dam. That is once they have been advised {that a} black automobile had been noticed close to the positioning on the evening of June 23. An intensive checking of all CCTV footage from a resort and a gas station on the highway resulting in the Kanva dam revealed the automobile in each movies.
In keeping with the TOI report, an evaluation of name element data of Chandrakala’s telephone threw up a a sample. She was in frequent contact with a person named Yogesh, an worker on the Normal Put up Workplace in Bengaluru. When location knowledge positioned Yogesh close to the dam website on the identical evening Lokesh died, cops detained each him and Chandrakala for questioning. The duo confessed to homicide.
“Lokesh had found his spouse’s affair with Yogesh. Fearing publicity and humiliation, Chandrakala and Yogesh determined to eradicate him. On June 23, after Lokesh left his hen store in Sunkadakatte, Chandrakala allegedly alerted Yogesh. Together with three accomplices in a black automobile that was bought only a week earlier, they adopted Lokesh and rear-ended his automobile close to the Kanva dam,” a cop advised TOI, giving extra particulars on how the crime and the cover-up have been dedicated.
“When Lokesh stepped out to examine the injury, he was attacked and compelled into the automobile. The poison was forcefully given to him. As soon as he died, they eliminated the physique from the automobile and positioned it a couple of toes away from the automobile. Earlier than escaping, they positioned the empty bottle of poison subsequent to the physique to make it appear to be a suicide,” the cop added.
“One, the cap was not discovered close to the bottle because it was thrown away close to the automobile once they pressured poison down his throat. Two, they failed to choose up one of many slippers that had fallen off whereas shifting the physique,” the cop additional mentioned.
Together with Chandrakala and Yogesh, the police have arrested 4 others allegedly concerned within the homicide – Shantaraju, C Anand alias Surya, G Shiva alias Shivalinga, and R Chandan Kumar, the report mentioned.
