Bengaluru: Five held for murder of ex-corporator’s husband

BENGALURU: The West division police have cracked the murder case of BJP worker Umesh Belagodu, husband of former BJP corporator of Pantaraplya ward Rajeshwari. Five men have been arrested and investigations revealed that Umesh was murdered as he refused to help one of the accused come out on bail in an old case.

The accused have been identified as Arun Kumar, 34, of Besagarahalli in Maddur, H.S. Jayaram aliad Handi, 28, Vijay Kumar alias Deo Putta, 25, Srinivas alias Pagal Seena, 19, all the three residents of Vinayaka Layout in Nayanadahalli, and M.S. Avinash alias Abhi, 23, of Malavalli in Mandya district. The police are on the lookout for the sixth accused, Vinay Kumar alias Mussanje Vinay.

The police said that Umesh was running a real estate business and had two cases of cheating against him registered at Chandra Layout. The prime accused, Arun, an autorickshaw driver, was working with Umesh. The deceased was allegedly trying to grab a residential plot in Chandra Layout and had taken Arun’s help to fence it. But there was a clash between the two over the property and they had moved court to claim ownership. They had arrived at a compromise later and started working together again.

“In 2014, Arun was arrested by the Byatarayanapura police in a robbery and assault case. Arun had then claimed that he was only following Umesh’s orders. Umesh had reportedly assured Arun that he would stand bail, but did not. After his release in December last year, Arun hatched a plot to murder Umesh,” the police said.

On November 19, Arun and other accused waited near Umesh’s house and the corporator’s husband saw them and tried to escape. The assailants chased Umesh hacked him to death. The police had formed three special teams to probe the case. The police found that a car was parked near Umesh’s house on the day of the murder and traced it to its owner Shivamurthy.

“When questioned, Shivamurthy said that his friend Arun had taken the car out on November 19, saying he wanted to go out with a friend. We launched a manhunt for Arun and arrested the five accused. Arun is a habitual offender and has 11 cases pending against him in various police stations. The court had also issued a nonbailable warrant against him,” the police said.

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