In a frightening development, the police have cracked a year-old case of a woman’s murder to find that the trail led to her boyfriend who planned the whole thing out imitating the Kannada film Drishya.
Hubbali-Dharwad Police have arrested Arun Shivlingappa Patil (24) for the murder of his Arpita Girimalla Birada (23) in May 2015. Now a Ph.D. student, Arun told the police that he copied ideas from the film Drishya.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, Police Commissioner Pandurang Rane said that Arun decided to kill Arpita because she insisted that they marry.
Police claim that he confessed to the crime on Monday during the fourth round of investigation. A special team of police led by Deputy Commissioner (Crime and traffic) Mallikarjun Baladandi was formed to investigate the case.
A student of the Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bengaluru, Arun and Arpita fell in love while they were pursuing B.Sc (Agriculture) in Vijayapura. After he moved away to pursue his Ph.D., Arpita insisted that they get married. Police said that when he did not reciprocate, she threatened to inform his parents. Because of this, police said, Arun decided to kill her.
Disturbingly, Arun admitted that he executed the murder after the manner of the thriller film Drishya, in which the protagonist cooks up an alibi to disconnect himself from the accidental death of a young man. Arun left his cell phone behind in his college hostel, managed to get his attendance marked on the day he allegedly committed the murder, to prove that he had been in Bengaluru.
On the day of the murder, Arun asked Arpita to meet him in Dharwad. In an autorickshaw, he took her to Gabbur where he strangled her and half-buried the body in a field. He rushed back to Bengaluru the same day.
The body was found by Jakir Hussain, the owner of the field, on 3 June 2015, three days after the murder. The investigation began after Arpita’s parents filed a complaint at the Dharwad Suburban police station upon finding that their daughter had gone missing from her college.