Mystery shrouds the death of a daily-wage earner whose body was found with a gunshot wound in a copse near Vandse in Udupi district Sunday morning.
Prabhakar Acharya (28) had left his house at Nojadi village, Kundapura taluk, around 9 p.m. on Saturday and had not returned even until next morning. His family attempted to contact him, but he did not receive the call.
Around 9 a.m. on Sunday, his body was found in the woods near Vandse. Kollur police said he had a country gun in his hand, with a single gunshot wound to his stomach.
In a complaint, Manjunath Acharya, the deceased’s elder brother, accused Nagaraj Poojary, Sundar Poojary and two other unidentified men of murder. He believes the men had lured Prabhakar to the forest in the guise of hunting, and then shot him over an “old enmity”.
While the Kollur police have filed a murder case, they have not made any arrests. “The body has been sent for post-mortem. We are still investigating whether it was accidental death during hunting or if it was murder… As far as we know, the accused have not absconded,” said Kollur Inspector Devendra.
Feared drowned
One person is feared to have washed away in the strong currents off the beach at MUDA Colony near Someshwara Sunday morning. Eyewitnesses said four persons from Mysore had come to the beach around 11 a.m. to swim in the rough seas despite warnings. Ashok S., a fisherman there, said, “We followed them, telling them that the sea is too rough, and even we had trouble heading out to sea in the morning. They did not listen, telling us that they had come a long distance to swim in the sea. When I shouted at them, they picked a fight.”
A few minutes later, he said, three of the men approached the fisherman telling him that one of them had washed away. However, the identity of the man was not known as his associates did not file a complaint with Ullal Police Station.
Tanker hits car
Five members of a family were injured after a tanker allegedly rammed their car in Shiradi Ghat on National Highway 75 (Bangalore-Mangalore) late Saturday night.
The family were heading towards Mangalore, when a tanker coming in the opposite direction collided with their car around 11 p.m., said the Puttur Traffic police. The injured have been identified as Idayattullah, Hakim, Tausim Begam, Bashir (who was driving the car) and Musamil Khan, all of whom live in Bangalore. They were admitted to Puttur government hospital with minor injuries.
