Vylakaval police in central Bengaluru on Monday arrested a man for allegedly plotting and hiring people to murder his wife. The two men who allegedly carried out the murder were also arrested on the same day.
The husband has been identified as Nagendra Babu, DCP Central Chetan Singh Rathore told reporters. The victim has been identified as Vinutha.
The two men who allegedly killed the woman are Prasanth and Jaganath. Both of them were tenants living in the same house and were working as autorickshaw drivers.
Police had recovered Vinutha’s body from a pool of blood on December 20 after they were alerted her family members. They had contacted the police after she could not be reached on phone.
The murder was made to look like an accident as if she has bled to death after accidentally falling and hitting her head on a cement block.
When she was reported to be dead by the husband, police initially thought it was an accident because the door was locked from the inside and no one was at home.
However, statements by the victim’s family and the couple’s troubled history made the police to probe other angles.
Over the last 12 years in their marriage, the couple had filed as many as nine police complaints against each other each. Before Vinutha’s death, they were living separately.
While Vinutha was staying in the house where she was killed, Nagendra was residing in Peenya along with their 11-year-old son.
The cops suspected foul play when the woman's parents approached the police fearing she may have attempted suicide as her husband was always fighting with her and was generally abusive, they said.
Police said when they interviewed various neighbours, they found out that the couple was having regular fights. The husband wanted to sell the house but the Vinutha did not. He allegedly gave Rs 5 lakh to the two tenants, asked them to kill his wife, and make it look like an accident.
While reconstructing the crime scene, police found that the bathroom window inside the woman's room was shaky and could have been used as an escape route by the culprits. Jaganath and Prasanth allegedly entered the house this way, committed the crime, and escaped the same way to make it look like Vinutha was alone when the ‘accident’ happened.
Rathore said, “It looked like ‘prison break style’ where the window grill was removable. Then we collected call record details of all of her family members and other possible suspects. Following this, we found that the duo was inside the house at the time of the murder.”
Police further said that the Prasanth and Jaganath had confessed to their role in the murder; and revealed that they entered to the house through the window and attacked Vinutha with a wooden log. Later they dragged her body and made it lie near the cement block.