The owner of Sri Krishna Cinema Hall in Tumakuru, Srinivasa Rao, his son, S. Santhosh and daughter-in-law, Lakshmi were arrested in Mysuru on Monday night in connection with the murder of Srinivasa Rao’s wife, Malini Rao, a social worker.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday afternoon, Superintendent of Police, Karthik Reddy said that a case of unnatural death was registered in Tumakuru Town Police Station on February 7, 2011 stating that Malini Rao had allegedly committed suicide by setting herself on fire.
According to the post mortem report, Malini Rao had died due to strangulation of the neck and then burnt by pouring kerosene. There were injuries on her neck and left kidney.
According to histopathology report and report from the Forensic Science Laboratory, the death was due to strangulation.
The police registered a case of murder after a period of more than one year from the date of incident.
Senior police official Karthik Reddy said that as the police officers who were handling the case had failed to collect the evidence in support of murder, the case was handed over to Circle Inspector of Kunigal, Dharmendra Kumar for investigation.
During the investigation it was found that the accused had tried to influence the witnesses and had told them to give statements that Ms. Rao had committed suicide.
Srinivasa Rao and his wife Malini Rao had a quarrel over a trivial reason after which he killed her. With the help of his son and daughter-in-law, he set his wife ablaze thereby destroying evidence and misleading the police.
Mr. Reddy said that a separate inquiry will be conducted against the police officers who had earlier handled the case and if found guilty, action will be taken against them.
Appreciation certificates were given to the members of the special team who cracked the case.
Additional Superintendent of Police, R. Lakshman and other police officers were present.