BENGALURU: The Kumaraswamy Layout police have arrested four accused who allegedly murdered an elderly couple, and have recovered gold jewellery worth Rs 8.5 lakh from them. The prime accused was a tenant of the couple six years ago. He hatched the plot with three others, and all of them arrived in the city from Hindupur to execute the crime.
The four, identified as Narayanaswamy (48), Devangam Ramu alias Ramaswamy (45), Shaik Asif (47) and Gangadhar (41), are accused of murdering Shantharaju (65), a retired BMTC employee, and his wife Premalatha (61), on Friday afternoon.
A senior police officer said that Narayanaswamy, who ran a grocery store, was facing financial trouble and had taken loans from private financiers in Andhra Pradesh. Since he was unable to repay debts, he came up with a plan to kill the couple and rob their valuables. Accordingly, he visited the couple’s house two weeks ago, but learnt that they were away attending a wedding. He, however, continued to watch their house, keeping track of their movements.
Roping in his associates, he came to their house on Friday morning, and chatted with the couple over tea. A little later, Ramaswamy asked where the washroom was. When Premalatha was leading him, he attacked her from behind and strangled her to death with a cable inside a room, while the three others slit Shantharaju’s throat. They then removed gold ornaments from Premalatha’s body and ransacked the house, escaping with just the Rs 2,000 in cash they could find. They headed for Majestic and took a government bus to reach their hometown, the officer added.
A special team scanned around 300 CCTV clips to establish the identity of the accused and also questioned about 120 people, including relatives, friends and tenants, before the police zeroed in on Narayanaswamy.