Bangalore,mar30: Police have cracked the sensational murder case of a retired banker recently at Adugodi by arresting seven men.
The suspects on March 25 barged into the house of Uday Raj Singh and attacked him and wife Susheela with sharp weapons before fleeing with an antique piece of diamond-studded necklace. Singh died instantaneously.
According to the police, three men who were nabbed soon after the murder while they were trying to flee with a box containing the jewellery have been identified as Madhu alias Madhusudan, 27, a native of Mysore; Satish, 25, a resident of Srirangapatna in Mandya district; and Dileep Kumar, 24.
On Friday evening, the police nabbed two more people who were part of the gang – Sridhar, 31, and Amith Kumar, 23, from their residence in Mysore.
Later that night, Kiran, 28, a resident of Hassan, and Abhishek, 27, a resident of Mysore, were picked up from a friend’s house in Tumkur.
By the end of the day, the seven-man gang was in custody, the police said.
The police said Madhu, an MBA graduate and son of an ex-army man, was working as an assistant manager at the HDFC Bank in Malleswaram. He later moved to Mysore and took up a job at the franchise of Edelweiss Private Limited, a prominent share market company.
Satish discontinued education after finishing his 10th standard and worked as a lorry driver. Dileep, who is also a 10th pass, was employed with a bulb factory in Mysore. Abhishek had completed his ITI diploma and was working as the head of the unit along with Madhu in Edelweis, Mysore. Kiran was earlier arrested for bike theft and was released 10 days ago.
Sridhar, an MBA graduate, was working with ICICI Bank in Mysore, and Amith Kumar, a BBM graduate, had a job at a call centre.
During the interrogation it came to light that Madhu, along with Ramprasad and others, purchased the franchise of Edelweiss Private Limited, but the company ran into loss and Ramprasad cheated Madhu of Rs 1.2 crore. He had also cheated other people of money and had been absconding for the past one and a half years. There are cases registered against Ramprasad in Hospet, Tumkur and other places, added police.
Huge debt
Madhu had run into deep debt and people who had invested in the company were constantly nagging him to return the money, while Ramprasad was absconding. Madhu did not know what to do and shared his problem with his friend Abhishek.
Later on, Abhishek introduced Madhu to Ravindra who told them about Uday Raj Singh, a retired State Bank of Mysore manager in Bangalore who was trying to sell an antique gold necklace.
Madhu and Abhishek gathered information about the antique piece made out of gold and diamond and valued at Rs 18 crore. They both planned to somehow buy the necklace and sell it at a higher price in Mumbai, which would help them settle their debts, said the police.
Madhu and Abhishek visited Singh’s house a couple of times posing as customers to buy the necklace and were negotiating the price with Singh. The duo informed the rest of their friends and conspired to steal the necklace by murdering Singh.
On March 25, all the seven of them went to Singh’s house in two cars at around 2 pm and started negotiating the deal. While they were talking business, they pulled out knives and other weapons, slit Singh’s throat and killed him brutally. They also slit Singh’s wife Susheela’s throat and grabbed the jewel and other gold ornaments which Susheela was wearing. But the screams of Susheela alerted the passersby and neighbours who found that something had gone wrong and informed the police constables who were posted at a nearby school. Amith, who was standing guard outside the house, alerted his friends to flee.
Sudhir S, inspector, Adugodi police station, said, “The police rushed to the spot, while the accused got petrified on seeing people gathered outside the house. They tried to flee by jumping off the compound wall on the rear side of the house. While three of them were nabbed by the police constables with the help of three passersby, the other four managed to escape.”
He added that the four absconding men were arrested based on the information provided by their three associates.
A senior police officer said the higher authorities had announced a cash prize for the constables and three people who put up a daring act in nabbing the suspects on the day of the murder.
