The sleuths of the homicide and burglary squad of the CCB cracked a murder case and arrested seven persons who used to gamble with the victim.
The accused are Murthy, 31, Srinivas alias Seena, 27, Dinesh Kumar alias Bhutto, 29, Jeeva, 27, Hemanth, 26, Shankar, 35, and Nagaraju, 37. They are accused of murdering Nagendra Gupta, 46, of Girinagar.
According to the police, Gupta allegedly played ‘rice pulling’ a gambling game every day along with the accused. He reportedly won the game every day and had made huge money. This had made the accused jealous and they wanted to recover the money they had lost.
“They had assumed that Gupta had dug up the ground in his house and had buried all the money. So, they allegedly hatched a plot to kidnap him. According to their plan, a few of them would kidnap him and sedate him while others would enter the house and dig out the money. On May 18, they went to Gupta’s house and took him to Ganapathi Temple in Girinagar in a car. They sedated him, and as he collapsed, they panicked and smothered him to death,” police explained.
“Later, they took the body near Hoskote Road where they shifted the body to another car and threw the body in Mulbagal to destroy the evidence. Though it was suspected that he had died of heart attack, circumstantial evidence led the police to suspect foul play behind the death. They zeroed in on the accused on various clues and arrested them,” the police added.
The two cars and chemicals used by the seven accused to sedate the victim have been recovered.