A 52-year-old cab driver has been arrested in Bengaluru for allegedly murdering his wife and six members of her family over a period of about two weeks, in a case that has shocked the city with the planning and the cold calculation that police say went into the killings and the disposal of the bodies.
The accused, identified as Indushekhar, was arrested near Ulsoorgate on Wednesday after a missing-person complaint led investigators to question him about the disappearance of several members of his wife's family. Police say he has confessed to killing seven people at his rented house in the Rajajinagar area between October 14 and 31, and to dumping their bodies at different locations across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The victims have been identified as his wife Sunitha; her mother Rupavathi; her brothers Shivakumar and Shankar; their wives Divya and Nalini; and seven-year-old Puneeth, the son of Shivakumar and Divya. All of them were residents of Srirampura in Bengaluru. The case came to light after family members grew suspicious when several relatives went missing at the same time, and a missing-person complaint was registered at the Srirampura police station on November 3.
Police have so far recovered three of the seven bodies. The body of seven-year-old Puneeth was found near Nandi Hills in Chikkaballapur district after an extensive search, and the bodies of Sunitha and Rupavathi were recovered from a forest area in Salem district of Tamil Nadu. A 12-member team comprising family members has travelled to Salem to identify the bodies and complete the legal formalities.
The search for the remaining four bodies is continuing at locations identified by the accused during his questioning.
According to the police, Indushekhar allegedly killed Sunitha first, on the night of October 14, striking her on the head with a grinding stone at their rented house on 59th Cross, Rajajinagar V Block, near Bhashyam Circle. The following day, his 17-year-old daughter called Rupavathi and invited her to their home for dinner, saying they would prepare mutton curry.
Investigators suspect the invitation was part of a plan to lure her to the house, where she was allegedly killed as well.
During interrogation, Indushekhar allegedly told police that he used sleeping pills to sedate his victims before attacking them with the grinding stone after they had fallen asleep. He would turn up the volume of the television while carrying out the assaults, police said, so that neighbours would not hear any sounds from inside the house.
The killings, investigators believe, were spread over several days, with the victims being called to the house one by one or in small groups.
After the killings, Indushekhar and his daughter allegedly wrapped the bodies in multiple layers of plastic sheets to prevent blood from leaking out, and then placed them in gunny bags. They would carry the bags to his Toyota Etios car in the early hours of the morning and drive away to dispose of them at different locations.
Police have recovered at least half a dozen perfume bottles from the car, and investigators are examining whether they were used in connection with the disposal of the bodies.
Investigators have also found that Indushekhar allegedly removed gold ornaments from the bodies of his wife and three other women before disposing of them. He is suspected to have sold some of the jewellery, and police are now trying to trace the transactions and establish where the ornaments went. The grinding stone allegedly used in the murders and the car allegedly used to transport the bodies have both been seized.
The postmortem report of seven-year-old Puneeth, who was allegedly killed on October 29, confirmed four blunt-force injuries to his head, including injuries to the forehead and the crown, police said. The child's death has added to the horror of the case, as has the discovery that a 10-year-old boy, the son of two of the victims, was found in Indushekhar's car when police arrested him near Ulsoorgate.
Investigators said the accused had allegedly planned to kill the child as well.
The boy had reportedly been taken away from his home on the pretext that his parents had gone on a pilgrimage. He spent several days with Indushekhar and his daughter, unaware that his parents had allegedly been murdered. Police suspect the accused was waiting for an opportunity to kill him before his arrest, and the boy's presence in the car proved crucial in the investigation, with officers rescuing him before the alleged plan could be carried out.
The role of the 17-year-old daughter is also under investigation. Police suspect she assisted her father in some of the murders and in the disposal of the bodies, and investigators are probing the extent of her involvement in the sequence of killings. Her questioning is continuing, and police have said they are examining the circumstances of each murder separately before deciding on the charges against her.
Police suspect the murders stemmed from a prolonged marital dispute between Indushekhar and Sunitha. During questioning, he allegedly told investigators that he had been in conflict with his wife for nearly 20 years and blamed her relatives for supporting her during their disputes. He is said to have described their interference in his personal life as the trigger for the killings.
Investigators are also examining another possible motive. Relatives of the victims have alleged that a dispute over family property worth around three crore rupees could have been behind the killings, though police are continuing to establish the motive. Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge described the incident on Friday as deeply unfortunate, calling it an apparently pre-planned crime involving members of the same family.
The case began to unravel when relatives noticed that messages were being sent from Sunitha's phone, but nobody was receiving calls from her. Investigators suspect Indushekhar had been using his wife's phone to message her mother and conceal the murder, keeping the family in the dark while he carried out the remaining killings.
Bengaluru Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh said the missing-person complaint had set the investigation in motion, and the North Division Deputy Commissioner of Police, B S Nema Gowda, confirmed that an inquiry was under way to establish the circumstances of the suspected killings and recover the remaining bodies. Three special teams, led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), have been formed to pursue the investigation.
Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances of all seven murders, the disposal of the bodies at different locations, the suspected sale of the gold ornaments and the role of the accused's daughter. The search teams are working on the information given by the accused to trace the four bodies that are still missing, and the investigation is expected to continue for several more days as the police piece together the full sequence of events.
(Reporting based on The Times of India and The New Indian Express.)