Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur

Kundapur, Apr 28: In a historic judgement, the Kundapur additional district and sessions court on Thursday April 28 awarded death penalty to a man for murdering a girl six years ago.

Satish Poojary, a resident of Hemmady, has been found guilty of murdering Akkayya alias Latha Poojary in June 2010.

File Photos

Latha hailed from a poor family and earned her livelihood by tying beedis. In June 2010, she joined a private educational institution in Kundapur as an ayah. At the time, Satish, who was 34, was running a fancy store in Hemmady. He had also contested the gram panchayat elections twice and lost both times.

Latha and Satish were friends, but over a period of time, Satish misused her friendship for his own benefits. Their friendship grew into an affair and Satish took advantage of her to gratify himself. When Latha felt that the situation was going out of hand, she began pressuring him to marry her. But Satish used to evade the topic, and angered at his behaviour, she began blackmailing him. Feeling mentally harassed by Latha, Satish decided to put an end to the matter.

One day, when she was returning from work by school bus, she asked the driver to drop her at Tallur, saying that she had to visit a friend. It was Satish that she had come to meet. Satish came to the spot in a friend's Omni and took her Maravante beach. He then used her churidar shawl to strangle her in the Omni itself. By then, the time was past 3 pm. To avoid suspicion, Satish parked the Omni, with Latha's body in it, in front of his shop till 7 pm. Thereafter, he drove to Kolur cross at Kundabaradandi in Halkady and threw the body. Before leaving the spot, he took away the gold ornaments she was wearing and flung away her footwear and umbrella nearby.

The body was soon discovered and a sense of anxiety gripped the locals. A team led by the then DySP Vishwanath Pandith, comprising Madan Gaonkar who was serving in Kundapur police station, Gangolli inspector Gopal Naik and Sathish Kumar carried out the investigation. The most important lead in the case was the series of phone calls. Latha had two mobile phones, and the call records showed that she was in constant touch with Satish. Moreover, on the day of the murder, Satish received calls after 7 pm, which were traced to a mobile tower in Aloor. During interrogation on these points, Satish admitted his guilt and narrated the whole story. About five or six of his friends were also questioned. Satish was then jailed, but was soon out on conditional bail. Confident that the case would be closed, he attended the hearing on Thursday.

After the hearing ended, judge Rajshekar V Patil convicted Satish and sentenced him to death. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, Satish broke down.

There were 28 witnesses in the case. Advocate Srinivas Hegde was the public prosecutor.