BENGALURU: An Income Tax officer’s son who was kidnapped in Bengaluru on September 12, it is now learnt, was murdered by his abductors. Four suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder, while one is at large.
According to the Bengaluru police, 19-year-old N Sharath, son of Niranjan Kumar, was murdered on the very day he was abducted.
The four men arrested for the murder have been identified as H P Vishal (21), Vinay Prasad (24), Karan Pai (22) and Vinod Kumar (24). A fifth accused, Shantha Kumar, is absconding. The prime accused, Vishal, was in fact a friend of Sharath and an acquaintance of the family. He has allegedly confessed to the crime.
Police said the accused planned to extract a ransom from Sharath’s parents. But after abducting Sharath, they got to know that his parents had gone to the police. They got cold feet and decided to murder Sharath. Sometime between 11.30 pm and midnight on September 12, they strangled him in a Swift Dzire car belonging to Vinay. They then tied a boulder to the body and threw it in the Narasimhanna lake.
They went back to the lake some night later to check if the body had surfaced. Four days later, they found it floating in the water. They again tied the body to a boulder and drowned it, but it resurfaced after a few more days. They then shifted the decomposed body in a car and buried it at Kurubrapalya Bande near the Ramohalli lake on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
Police set up four special teams to search for Sharath. From his call records, they found that Sharath had spoken to Vishal. They then kept tabs on Vishal’s movements through his mobile network, and found that he was making trips late at night to the Narasimhanna lake. They rounded him up and Vishal confessed.
On September 12, Sharath left his house on Ullal Main Road at around 6 pm to show off his new Royal Enfield Classic 350 bike to his friends. He never returned home. That night, a video was sent to Sharath’s parents via Whatsapp in which Sharath was recorded asking his parents to pay up.
Vishal got the idea of kidnapping Sharath from seeing the latter’s father Niranjan gift him expensive stuff. He and four others hatched a kidnapping plan. Vishal told Sharath about a new Benelli bike that a friend had bought, and invited him to ride along on his Bullet. Sharath agreed.
In the video sent to his parents, Sharath is seen informing his father that he had been kidnapped by ‘someone who suffered at your hands’ and asking for a ransom of Rs 50 lakh to free him. He also said a call would be made the next day to inform them more details, but no other call was made.