The K.S. Layout police cracked the murder of an elderly couple and arrested four persons, including a former tenant, who killed the couple with the intention of looting their valuables on Varamahalakshmi festival on Friday.
The accused, identified as Narayanaswamy, 48, from Hindupur was a tenant and had vacated the house a few years ago .However, he used to visit the couple once in a while to check on them.
Kantharaju, a mechanic with BMTC, was living with his wife Premalatha in a two storey house in Kashinagar after retirement. The couple had no children and had rented out portions of the house .
Investigations revealed that Narayanaswamy, who owns a petty shop, had financial troubles and had borrowed ₹3 lakh for two years. As he could not repay the same, he hatched a plan to kill the couple and rob their gold. As per the plan, he visited them in the second week of August and learned that they were going to attend the wedding of a relative.
He roped in his associates — Ramaswamy, Asif and Gangadhar — and visited the couple on Friday. The couple offered them tea. The accused then attacked Kantharaju and slit his throat in the bedroom, while Ramaswamy strangled Premalatha, 61, to death with a clutch wire he had picked up from the roadside. The accused removed the gold from Premalatha, ransacked the house and escaped with valuables and cash of ₹2,000.
The K.S. Layout police learned that the assailants were known to the couple. Four teams of police gathered footage from 300 CCTV cameras for analysis and over 100 people, including the tenants, relatives and a few labourers working nearby were questioned, before the police zeroed in on Narayanaswamy.
A detailed questioning led him to confess to the crime based on which the police recovered the valuables.
