Bengaluru: A team of police from Sydney is in Bengaluru investigating the possibility of a local angle in the murder of Prabha Arun Kumar, a senior technical analyst who was stabbed by an unidentified person in Strathfield in March 2015.
Mrs. Kumar was barely a few yards from her house and on the phone with her husband in Bengaluru when she told him that a man was following her. Soon after, the man attacked her.
Sources told The Hindu that the Sydney police are investigating whether someone known to Mrs. Kumar had orchestrated the attack. They are probing the case with the assistance of cyber crime sleuths here. “The Sydney police have questioned over 4,000 suspects apart from habitual offenders, but do not have any lead,” said the source. “They are analysing call record details, as she used to receive calls from India.”
The Sydney police are coordinating with the Cyber Crime Cell of the CID.
The team is expected to meet her husband and daughter, who are based in Bengaluru, and her parents who live in Amtur village near Mangaluru, the source added. “The assailant did not rob Mrs. Kumar. Among other things, she was wearing a gold chain leading police to suspect that it was not a murder for gain. They are now probing whether she was murdered for personal reasons,” he added.
CCTV footage from three cameras on the night of the crime show Mrs. Kumar alighting from a train at Parramatta station in a Sydney suburb. She was being followed by a man wearing a jacket. He was following her even as she walked on Argyle Street towards her house.
“Going by the modus operandi, the assailant could be a contract killer,” said a senior police officer.
Additional Director General of Police (CID) Pratap Reddy refused to comment on the development.
