BENGALURU: THE owner of a bar and restaurant, along with one of his employees, have been arrested by the Sampangiram Nagar police on charges of murdering his wife, a 30-year-old software engineer based in the city.
The incident took place on January 6, and the mother of the victim had filed a missing person’s case with the SR Nagar police about two weeks later. Domestic dispute is said to be the motive behind the murder.
The deceased is Akshatha, wife of Chandrakanth Kondli. They have a four-year-old son. The couple hailed from Karwar and were residing in an apartment in Hebbal-Kempapura.
Police picked up Chandrakanth (40) and his employee Rajendar Singh (29), who worked as a bouncer, and charged them with smothering Akshatha to death.
Akshatha was employed with a reputed software firm while Chandrakanth ran the New Silver Spoon Bar and Family restaurant in the area. Akshatha had resigned two months back and was about to join another software firm in March.
A senior police officer said, “Akshatha’s mother Rekha had come to Chandrakanth’s restaurant on January 22 to enquire about her daughter as she had not been in contact for two weeks. Chandrakanth told her that she left the city a few days ago after collecting `50,000 from him and was not even responding to his phone calls. This made Rekha suspicious and she filed a missing person’s case with the police. Following this, police tracked her phone location which showed it was somewhere in north India.”
The police also became suspicious of Chandrakanth’s behaviour. “After some days, we took him into police custody. When he was grilled, he confessed that he had smothered Akshatha in his flat and then asked his employee Singh to dispose of the body. Singh had loaded the body in a car late at night and took it to a forest at Kamanadoddi village near Hosur on the Tamil Nadu border and set it on fire. He then left the city for his native Delhi and carried Akshatha’s mobile phone along with him. But he was not answering the phone calls,” the officer added. Following Chandrakanth’s confession, police arrested Singh from Delhi.
“During interrogation, Chandrakanth said he used to suspect her fidelity which led to frequent quarrels between them. The arrested have been remanded to judicial custody.”
The victim’s mother Rekha told The New Indian Express that Akshatha and Chandrakanth had married 11 years ago after they fell in love.
“I was staying with them. On January 6, I went to my son’s house in Sahakarnagar. That was when he killed her when their son had gone out to play with the neighbouring kids. I returned home after two days and asked about Akshatha. He replied that Akshatha told him that she had plans to visit Delhi and so she left. I believed him and waited till January 15 as she was about to join another company in Manyata Tech Park. Then I decided to file a case as he stopped answering about Akshatha”.
“I was shocked when police told me that Akshatha was killed. I do not know the exact reason which led him to kill my daughter. She did not have the time to look after his business and they would quarrel over this,” Rekha added.
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