In a plot that seems straight out of a crime novel, three seemingly unrelated deaths — two occurred more than 14 years ago and were pegged by the police as accidental deaths — have turned out to be murder by the same gang. The saga revolves around a woman; two of the victims were in a relationship with her.
The police, on Tuesday, arrested a gang of seven on the charge of killing three men in 2001, 2002 and 2014. All the bodies were found along the railway track in Kengeri. The crimes were committed in such a manner that the police took them for accidental deaths and filed Unnatural Death Reports.
The first murder took place in 2001. Prime suspect Venkatesh, along with his friends Shekar and Kumar, killed a man for marrying his girlfriend. Venkatesh allegedly strangled the victim, Yellappa, and dumped the body on the railway track to pass it off as an accident.
The ploy worked. The railway police discovered the body, but were unable to identify the victim. They closed the case as one of unnatural death.
“The subsequent year, the woman fell in love with another man, Ramesh. Venkatesh, along with Shekar, Kumar and four other men, murdered Ramesh using the same modus operandi,” said Praveen Sood, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru.
When this murder, too, went unnoticed by the investigators, the gang thought that they had got away with their crimes.
However, in 2014, Ramesh’s brother Suresh learnt that his death was not an accident. Police say Suresh is a habitual offender.
His informants told him that Shekar was involved in the murder. “Suresh approached his friends — Nagendra and Ganesh — to plan revenge, not knowing that the duo had a hand in the murder of Ramesh,” added the commissioner.
Nagendra and Ganesh informed Shekar and Venkatesh about Suresh’s intentions. Pretending to go along with Suresh’s plan, the duo invited him to a party in Kengeri where the gang strangled him to death and dumped his body on the same railway track. This case, too, was closed since the body could not be identified.
On June 5, Suresh’s wife approached the Kengeri police claiming that her husband, who was reported missing in 2014, had been murdered by a rival gang. On her insistence, police reopened the case.
“When we enquired with Suresh’s friends, we learnt that he had befriended Nagendra and Ganesh, and also about his suspicion of Shekar’s involvement in the murder of his brother,” said a source in the police.
Further investigation revealed that Shekar had served jail time in 2003 and 2013 for two unrelated murders. “In those cases too, the murders were made to appear like unnatural death,” said a police officer.
The police arrested Shekar (33), Venkatesh (40), Kumar (37), Ganesh (31), Nagendra Kumar (34), Raju (34) and Nagendra (25), all residents of Kengeri, for the murders.
