BENGALURU: Within a fortnight of the body of a 19-year-old found on the railway tracks near Kengeri, the Government Railway Police has cracked the case and arrested three of his friends for his murder. Police suspect that a fight over a stolen iPhone may have been the reason behind his murder.
Chinnu alias Srinivas was killed on March 4 by Abhishek (22), Madhukumar and Madan (both 19 years), all residents of Kadugodi. The trio later dumped his body on the railway track.
Anoop A Shetty, GRP Superintendent of Police, Karnataka, said the four individuals were addicted to smoking marijuana. Srinivas had stolen three mobile phones, two of which were iPhones. “The main accused Abhishek told Srinivas that he was willing to pay `6,000 for one of the iPhones. But Srinivas refused to hand it over to him and wanted a better price for it,” Shetty said.
The three made a plan and took Srinivas to Kengeri telling him that iPhones fetched a good price there. “They made him smoke marijuana near the railway tracks and then beat him to death with a stone slab and left him on the tracks,” the SP said. Passing trains ran over the body, he added.
Police were suspicious about the nature of death as they had found the stone slab with blood lying near the track. Police also found a piece of paper in Srinivas’s pocket bearing the numbers of his friends. When police contacted the number, they learnt that the four people used to often be in each other’s company. “We arrested them and they confessed to the murder,” he added.
Deputy Superintendent B N Shamanna and Inspector Nagaraj were responsible for brining the culprits to book, he added. “The case has been solved very quickly by them,” he said.
“It took the police six days to find the identity of the individual and the culprits were caught in a week,” the SP said.