Bangalore: 'Perfect Murder' Landed them in Net !
Bangalore, Apr 14 (TOI): They wanted their first crime to be a 'perfect murder' and took care to ensure there were no clues. But they got away with the murder of popular doctor from Sanjaynagar Dr Sharath Kumar for only four days.
A team of City Crime Branch sleuths and Sanjaynagar police arrested seven persons, including a 24-year-old girl, for the murder on April 9. After collecting over 800 gm of gold jewellery as ransom, they killed him near Kunigal.
Ravi Kumar, 28; Aswath Gowda, 25; Shiva Pratap, 25; Chetan Kumar, 20; Bhushit, 20; Kumar, 30, and Sanjana, 24, were arrested and the police recovered 660 gm of gold and Rs 1.32 lakh from them.
The mastermind Ravi Kumar was a gym instructor in Sanjaynagar and Sanjana was one of his many girlfriends. Along with Aswath Gowda, his assistant, and the others, he hatched a plan to kidnap Dr Sharath for a steep ransom.
Ravi knew that Dr Sharath owned some commercial complexes in Sanjaynagar and earned a large sum of money as rent. He roped in cab driver Kumar as well as Chetan and Bhushit, both BBM students.
On April 9, Ravi requested the doctor to come to his house to attend to his ailing mother. When Dr Sharath went there, the gang demanded Rs 25 lakh for his release. When he said he couldn't arrange such a large amount in cash, Ravi Kumar made Dr Sharath call his friend and jeweller Shailendra and asked him to deliver 572 gm of gold jewellery to his house. Later, he forced Dr Sharath to call Shailendra and asked him to deliver 264 gm of jewellery to a medical shop. While Ravi collected the first consignment from Dr Sharath's wife Anjali, Bhushit collected the second consignment from Nagendra at the shop.
Initially, the gang thought of collecting the jewellery from Shailendra directly, but were scared the shop's CCTV camera would record their faces. They drove Dr Sharath in Kumar's cab to Kunigal and went to Amruthur. They strangled Dr Sharath, and dumped the body near Amruthur and returned to the city.
When Dr Sharath did not return till April 10, Anjali lodged a complaint with the Sanjayangar police. Based on cellphone records, the police traced Dr Sharath's body to Amruthur.
Police commissionrer Shankar Bidari said, "The police had been keeping a watch on the movement of some persons. One of them led us to Ravi Kumar."
THE RANSOM
The gang put one gold chain into a temple hundi. Sanjana was given around 60 gm of gold jewellery, which she tried to dispose of through her brother. The gang pledged around 187 gm of jewellery with Muthoti Finance, R T Nagar branch for Rs 1.34 lakh. Both Chetan and Bhushit went to Ooty but were arrested when they returned on Monday. Ravi told the police they planned to start a business venture with the money.