A 55-year-old death row prisoner broke out of the Central Prison at Hindalga in Belgaum district in Karnataka on April 22.
A. Murugesan (55), a native of Bargur Hills in Erode district, was residing with his wife Pappa (55) at Kannamuchi village in Kolathur. In May 2015, while working in a sugarcane field at Harale village in Kollegal taluk he attempted to misbehave with two women.
On May 12, 2015, he murdered five persons belonging to two families - Rajendran (37), his wife Rajamma (35), their daughter Roja (9), Kasi (40) and his wife Sivamma (35), in the sugarcane field. Kollegal police arrested and lodged him in the prison. He was an under trial prisoner from 2015 to 2017 at the District Central Prison at Chamrajnagar. The court sentenced him to death in 2017 after which he was shifted to Hindalga.
It is said that during the Lok Sabha elections, police and the security personnel at the prison were deployed for poll duty and the prison had minimum security. On April 22, he escaped from the prison and the incident came to light only during the roll call. Belagavi Rural police had registered a case. On Friday, a police team from Karnataka visited his house at Kannamuchi and held inquiries with his wife.