Mandya (Karnataka), Aug 5 (IANS): Karnataka Police have cracked a case of brutal murder of two women, whose body parts were recovered from a canal in Mandya district, police said on Friday.

The police have arrested two persons in the case so far -- Siddalingappa (35), a resident of Kodihalli colony near Kudur town in Ramnagar district and his lover Chandrakala, a resident of Haravu village near Pandavapura town in Mandya district.

The investigations revealed that the accused had killed another women and were planning to carryout five more murders. The killers were on a murder spree in connection with financial disputes, jealousy and illegal gains, stated Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mysuru South Zone Praveen Madhukar Pawar.

The two murdered women were known to the accused. The accused invited the victims to their house on the pretext of getting them jobs in a nursing home and a garment factory.

The women, whose bodies were cut in half, have been identified as Parvathi, a resident of Hosadurga in Chitradurga district and Geetha, a.k.a Putti, a resident of Chamarajanagar.

The killer duo had killed Parvathi on May 30 and Geetha on June 3. The bodies of the victims were cut into two pieces as the killers found it difficult to transport the bodies on bike from their home. The severed bodies of the two women were found at two different locations near a water canal of Mandya on June 8. The killers had severed the upper part of the body of both women and stuffed the lower part in gunny bags and discarded them in the water canals at two different places.

One severed body was recovered in the Baby Lake canal near K. Bettanahalli and another was found at the CDS Canal near Arakere village which comes under Pandavapura Town and Arakere police stations in Mandya district respectively.

The barbarity of the killers had shocked the local people.

Initially, not able to get any headway in the investigation of the case, the Mandya police had announced Rs 1 lakh reward for anyone who could give clues.

The police team had circulated 10,000 handbills in the surrounding areas about the mutilated dead bodies. The police formed nine special teams and two technical teams to crack the case.

The police verified 1,116 missing cases of women in the state and neighbouring states. The probe team came across the case of a missing person identified as Geetha in Charamarajanagar police station. Geetha was one of the two victims whose body was cut into half.

The police followed the missing case as there were similarities between Geetha and the recovered half part of the body. The police tracked the phone calls made by Geetha and nabbed the killers.

The accused later confessed that they had killed another woman named Kumuda in Bengaluru. They further said that they carried the dead body of Kumuda on a bike and threw it somewhere.

The police are continuing the investigations. Mandya SP N. Yathish had monitored the investigations and the team had been awarded a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.