BENGALURU: A 31-year-old man strangled his 21-year-old wife to death on August 12, when she refused to part with her hard-earned money, which he was demanding from her.
On Sunday, the body of the woman, Shilpa, was found buried on some land belonging to the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), just a kilometre from Kothanur police station.
The Kothanur police arrested her husband, Kallesh, a food delivery agent, and his elder brother for killing Shilpa.
The accused brothers had shifted the young woman’s body on a bike late on the night of August 12 to bury her. The gruesome murder came to light only on Sunday, when ironically, Kallesh himself approached the police to file a missing person’s case. Shilpa, a native of Ballari, married Kallesh just a year ago.
A senior police officer said Kallesh was residing in a rented house in Durga Parameshwari Layout. Shilpa had completed Class 10 and wanted to take up a job, which Kallesh was not happy about.
However, she went ahead and joined a hotel last month as a sweeper, earning about Rs 7,000 per month. On the evening of August 12, she came home with her salary, and Kallesh demanded that he give it to her.
Shilpa refused, and late that night, the couple quarrelled over the issue before Shilpa went to bed. An angry Kallesh allegedly strangled her to death and used a pillow to suffocate her. Soon after confirming that she was dead, he called his brother Krishnappa.
Krishnappa, a mason, came to Kallesh’s house around 2.30am, and the brothers shifted Shilpa’s body on a two-wheeler to an isolated place. They buried the body.
When Shilpa did not surface even on Sunday morning, her mother, a victim of paralysis, asked Kallesh to file a missing person report, and he approached the Kothanur police to file a case.
While taking his statement, police found him behaving suspiciously and took him into custody.
Kallesh came out with the truth on being thoroughly interrogated. Kallesh’s brother Krishnappa too was arrested. The police exhumed Shilpa’s body and shifted it to Ambedkar Hospital for postmortem.