BENGALURU: Eight years after the crime, four men were sentenced to life imprisonment for abduction, rape and murder of a school teacher at Bidadi. Two of the accused were buoyed by a similar crime they had got away with six months prior to this incident, and saw it as a way to make easy money. Their motive was to sell the woman’s gold chain.
Bidadi police said four persons — Manjunath (34), Ravi (31), Ravish (28) and Narasimha (29), all from Ramanagara taluk, were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Ramanagara Sessions Court for the rape and murder of a 36-year-old school teacher at Ramanagara taluk in August 2009.
According to DySP (Nagamangala) Dharmendra, in early 2009, Ravish and Narasimha were going from Kunigal to Magadi. On the way, a woman asked for a lift. They picked her up, murdered her, stole her gold chain and dumped her body far away from the crime scene.
When they needed money again, they planned to abduct the school teacher to steal her gold chain. On August 1, 2009, the teacher was walking to the school where she worked. Narasimha, who worked as a driver, borrowed the car from his employer.
Around 7.15 am, the four men offered to drop her in a car. Being of the same town, the woman knew all four students, and two of them — Manjunath and Ravi — were students at the same school where she taught. After she got into the car, Ravi raped her and then strangled her to death. Like earlier, they travelled almost 100 km with her body and dumped it far from the crime scene — within Tumkur zilla panchayat.
Following the incident, police began investigations. One witness claimed he had seen the woman get into a car with the accused. The police found sperm and hair samples in the car. They carried out forensic analysis, and matched the DNA with that of Ravi and the victim. The victim’s body was also found. All four men were arrested two days after the crime. All the accused have been in jail since their arrest, the DySP said.The woman is survived by her husband and two children. Ravish and Narasimha are still under trial for the earlier murder.