Bengaluru: How T-shirt helped cops crack man’s murder case

BENGALURU: When the body of Satyasheelan, a 46-year-old daily-wage labourer, was found in a pool of blood on Banasawadi Main Road, east Bengaluru, on March 24 night, police initially thought the drunk man died after a fatal fall.

However, the postmortem report revealed a stab injury on his chest. Pulakeshinagar police started probing and arrested three accused.

What helped the police personnel crack the case was a white T-shirt with an ‘L’ printed in black, which one of the accused was wearing on the day of the incident.

The accused are Lokesh alias Patani, 21, from Shampura, Selvaraj alias Selva, 19, and Sunil A, 20, both from Doddagunte near Cox Town. All three are drummers by profession, cops said.

“The autopsy report from Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital said Satyasheelan died due to shock and haemorrhage as a result of the stab injury on the back of his chest. A case of suspicious death was registered and we formed a team led by inspector Firoz Mohammed. They cracked the case and arrested the accused,” said DCP (east) Rahulkumar Shahapurwad.

Police said Satyasheelan was at the crime scene with a liquor bottle at 10.30pm. The accused trio riding on a bike stopped and tried to snatch his liquor bottle, but he held on to it tightly. Lokesh then took out a knife and stabbed him on the back. Later, the trio fled the spot with the bottle.

Police collected CCTV footages from a nearby commercial establishment and found three bike-borne men in the video. The rider was wearing a white T-shirt with an ‘L’ printed in black. After verifying other CCTV footages, they identified the rider as Selva.