A couple and the woman’s brother have been arrested in Ballari in connection with the murder of a 26-year-old man whose partially burnt body was found near a canal in Ballari district, police said, noting that the three conspired to kill him after months of alleged harassment directed at the woman.
The accused, identified by police as Doda Basavanagoda, 32, his wife Shwetha D, 26, and her brother M Vijay, 23, have been remanded in judicial custody. Investigators said the three lured the man to a secluded location, strangled him with a rope and then set his body on fire in an attempt to destroy evidence.
The body was recovered on the morning of June 8 near Shivapura Tambrahalli LLC canal under the jurisdiction of Moka police station, a day after the man was reported missing.
Ballari Superintendent of Police, Suman D., said: Benekar, said the investigation concluded that the deceased subjected the married woman to continuous harassment for about a year by sending her unwanted videos and pressuring her to have sexual relations.
“The deceased was sending videos to a married woman and allegedly forcing her to cooperate with him for sex. The woman could not bear the constant harassment, so she informed her husband and brother,” Benekar said. As the harassment continued, the three accused allegedly hatched a conspiracy to eliminate him.”
According to the police, the woman called the victim on June 7 and asked him to meet her near the canal, where the other two accused were already waiting. “The accused used the woman to lure the victim to a secluded place near the canal. Once there, they strangled him with a rope and killed him. They had brought rope and fuel in a car beforehand,” Benekar said.
Police said the accused then moved the body about 10 kilometers from the killing site before dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire. “After the murder, the accused poured petrol on the body and tried to burn it to erase the evidence. After the crime, the three fled to Bengaluru. Our teams tracked them down and arrested them based on technical evidence and ongoing investigation,” Benekar said.
She added that the defendants appeared before a first-degree judicial magistrate court on Saturday evening and that investigators will demand their detention for further questioning.
The investigation initially examined whether the murder was related to a romantic relationship or a personal dispute. As officers collected forensic and technical evidence, they said they reconstructed a different series of events centered on the alleged harassment.
Police said a forensic examination of the victim’s cellphone was pivotal to the investigation. Officers allegedly recovered evidence indicating that he had sent inappropriate messages and content to several women. Investigators also analyzed call logs, cellphone location data and call patterns, which they said helped identify the suspects and determine the sequence of events.
During interrogation, the three defendants confessed to their involvement in the murder, according to police.
