BENGALURU: On the morning of April 7,
Marathahalli police had a perfect whodunit on their hands. Following an alert from the general public, they had recovered the charred remains of a man near Kempapura Main Road. The body was burnt beyond recognition and it appeared a case of murder. But the police neither knew who the victim was or who had killed him.
Their only clues — found near the body — were a pair of partially burnt slippers and an empty bottle that had contained petrol. On Tuesday, police cracked the case and had the killers behind bars. It was a strange case where the cops first nabbed the suspects and only later learnt the identity of the victim.
It all began with the empty bottle. With petrol being the obvious fuel for the fire, police reviewed CCTV footage from petrol bunks in their division.
“We had no clue as to the identity of the victim,” an investigating officer said. “We formed six special teams that scanned footage from over 200 CCTV cameras from either petrol bunks or buildings close to the bunks. One shot showed a man purchasing petrol from a bunk near JB Nagar on the night of April 6. Carefully analysis of the footage showed the man had two accomplices with him. They had arrived in a hired car. One of them was wearing a
pair of slippers that was identical to the one recovered near the body.”
Police noted the registration number of the car which led to them to the rental company’s offices in Indiranagar. “The three suspects had hired the car from the Indiranagar office and the staff gave us the address they had furnished,” police said.
The address was a paying guest facility in Kadubeesanahalli near Marathahalli. “It was a men’s PG run by two men, N Mahesh Reddy and S Rami Reddy,” said Abdul Ahad, deputy commissioner of police, Whitefield. “During interrogation, the two confessed to killing Murali, their cook.”
Police said Murali, aged around 30, had hailed from Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh. Murali often quarrelled with the two Reddys over things like salary, leave and his working hours. On April 6, Mahesh and Rami Reddy along with one N Vineeth, an employee of a private company who stays in the same PG, smothered Murali to death.
“Later that night, they dumped the body in the car they hired and drove to Kempapura,” police said. “On the way, they bought the petrol at the JB Nagar bunk.”
Mahesh 22, Vinith 22 and Rami, the accused trio, have been remanded in judicial custody. Vineeth is a house-keeping supervisor with a software company in Mahadevapura, police said.
