Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, May 2: The body of Umesh Putran (28), son of Gopal Marakala from Parkala Shettibettu near here, was found lying on the railway tracks at Perampally on Friday May 1 morning. The locals strongly feel that Putran was murdered before being thrown on the tracks.

Umesh, the locals said, was a well-behaved person with no vices. He worked as cleaner of the tempo at the milk dairy at Manipal and also as conductor. It is reliably learnt that he had some financial dealings with locals, Prabhakar and Heriya. The people said that these two used to attack Umesh often, besides posing death threats and inflicting mental torture. A complaint made to the police suspected that Umesh would have committed suicide, having been unable to bear the torture of these two persons.

His neighbours said that Umesh was a gentleman and was not fickle-minded. Therefore, they conclude that he would not have taken the decision to kill himself. They feel that the murderers would have pre-planned to lead him to the spot where his body was found, before killing him, and therefore, urged the policemen to investigate the case from all angles.

Umesh was an active Congress activist in Shettibettu ward. Several Congress activists from the region said that on Thursday night, two persons were seen quarreling with Umesh at Gatson Circle near fish market on Thursday night. They suspect involvement of these two persons in the murder, and have hoped that postmortem report and police investigation will bring out truth.