The Chintamani rural police on Sunday cracked the murder case of a lecturer at a private college and arrested two brothers and their friend for killing him and dumping the body in a well, tied with a boulder. Victim was murdered after he started demanding the money they owed him.
Superintendent of police, Chickaballapura, Kushal Chowksey, said that the deceased Ramanji Shivappa, 31, a resident of Rampura village in Chintamani, left home to go to London for work on June 18 and went missing. He neither reached London nor returned home. Days later, police recovered his body from a well in Kempadevanahalli with his hands and legs tied, mouth gagged and drowned
His brother Vishwanatha identified him and pointed fingers at a set of suspects.
According to him, Ramanji was MSc Agriculture Science graduate and was teaching at a private college in Yelahanka. Ramanji quit the job after the prime accused identified as Sudhakar, 26, an employee with a private finance company, had taken around ₹15 lakh from Ramanji assuring him of securing a high paying job in London.
The accused reportedly spent the money on his vices and started dodging Ramanji, who was desperate to go abroad and started demanding Sudhakar for the visa and ticket. Unable to bear this Sudhakar decided to kill Ramanji and roped in his younger brother Manoj, 23, who was also working at the same company and their friend Manjunatha, 27, who was working as labourer at a vegetable market. As per the plan, they allegedly called Ramanji to pack his bag to go to London and offered to drop him to the airport. Excited Ramanji packed his luggage and left with the accused after informing his brother and elder sister.
The accused allegedly took him to the isolated place in Kempadevanahalli and strangled him to death and dumped his body in a well. The accused even set fire to the luggage bag and returned home to make it look like that they had dropped Ramanji to the airport and returned home.
The trio have been booked for murder and destroying evidence, and taken into custody for further investigations, Mr. Chowksey said.
Published – June 29, 2025 11:03 pm IST