BENGALURU: A gang of four friends murdered one of their mates after kidnapping him to get a ransom to celebrate New Year in Goa. Three of the four have been arrested. The person who was murdered was a friend of the main accused. The gang made him speak to his wife and hand over Rs 5 lakh to them.
It was their second attempt, as the other victim managed to escape when the accused were taking him someplace to kill him and throw the body.
The complaint filed by the first victim helped the police to unravel the crime. Following their revelations, the police recovered the mutilated body of the deceased in the forest of Ramanagara on Tuesday. The murdered victim, Gurusiddappa, a resident of VV Layout, was working as an automobile spare parts delivery agent. The accused are T Sanjay, P Ananda and Hanumantha.
The police are hunting for the other accused, Thimma. Gurusiddappa was Sanjay’s friend and was helping him financially. Sanjay, a mechanic, was working at a garage near Gurusiddappa’s house. The victim used to visit the garage to service his bike and became friends with Sanjay. The gang kidnapped Gurusiddappa on December 30 and made him speak to his wife to hand over the money, which was collected by Hanumantha.
After collecting the money, the gang took Gurusiddappa to Ramanagara and stabbed him to death, fearing that he would reveal their identities. On December 30, Gurusiddappa’s wife filed a missing complaint at the Jnanabharathi police station. With the Rs 5 lakh ransom, the gang celebrated the New Year in Goa. They later visited a temple where Sanjay and Ananda got their heads tonsured seeking forgiveness.
Details of Gurusiddappa’s kidnapping and murder came to light while the Jnanabharathi police were investigating the kidnapping of Kishan Kumar (27) from Bihar. The accused kidnapped him on Christmas Day. They took him to Kundapur in Udupi to collect a ransom of Rs 1 lakh from his employer Sanjay Kuamr Pandit, an interior designer. When the accused stopped their car near a bar, Kumar managed to escape despite the accused stabbing him. Kumar’s complaint was filed on January 3.
The gang had originally planned to abduct Pandit, a resident of Kommaghatta in Kengeri. Kumar was staying with Pandit, who is also from Bihar. After managing to get Pandit’s mobile number, the accused called him, pretending to discuss interior design work. As he was at Kundapur, Pandit sent his employee Kumar to meet the caller when he was kidnapped. While filing the complaint, Kumar mentioned the mobile number of the accused from which they had contacted him. That led the police to the accused. “Both the cases were linked. We searched for Gurusidappa’s body in the forest area for two days and found the mutilated body which was eaten by wild animals,” S Girish, DCP (West), said.