Bengaluru: IBM techie met murderer on Facebook 2 months ago

Bengaluru: Police arrested a man from Haryana on Thursday, for allegedly killing a 31-year-old woman who was found murdered at her flat in an upscale apartment complex in Kadugodi on Tuesday night.

The accused has been identified as Sukhbir Singh, 30, a native of Rewari, a city in south west Haryana. Sukhbir, also a software engineer, had worked in the city with Yahoo and Accenture between 2011 and 2013 after which he was unemployed, the police said.

The accused is being brought to the city on Thursday by the police.

According to the police, Sukhbir had befriended Kusum on Facebook in late December last year and soon exchanged phone numbers and were in contact with each other since then.

“Sukhbir had come down to the city by flight on January 19, telling Kusum that he had some work in Bengaluru and he shall meet her, for the first time, at her flat after the work is done. He reached Kusum’s flat in Mahaveer Kings’ Place around 12:30 pm, and that was when Kusum insisted that he make an entry in the security register,” said Dr M B Boralingaiah, DCP South East adding that “interestingly, Sukhbir who wrote his name correctly did not write his correct contact number.”

Sukhbir had reportedly confessed to the crime and had told the police that he killed Kusum after she refused to give him any money.

According to the police, at their first meeting at Kusum’s flat on Tuesday, Sukhbir started asking for Rs. 50,000 which Kusum denied. He later asked her to at least buy him air-tickets back to Delhi and give Rs. 5000 for his expenses as he did not have any cash on him for which Kusum denied again.

A scuffle broke out between them and Sukhbir strangled Kusum with a laptop charger wire after which he stabbed her head with a pen and killed her. He had left his blood soaked jeans at Kusum’s house and fled the spot after taking and wearing one of Kusum’s jeans from her house, the police said. The accused then made away with her three debit and credit cards, check book, laptop and on the way drew Rs. 45,000 in two occasions after which he took a flight to Mumbai and then to Delhi on Tuesday.

Based on call records, and analysis of their social media interactions, the police zeroed in on Sukhbir Singh and arrested him from his place in Rewari in Haryana on Wednesday.

Kusum Rani Singla, a native of Barnala district in Punjab, was working as a software engineer with IBM in Whitefield and resided along with her female flat-mate in flat no. 507, on the fourth floor of Mahaveer King’s Place in Kadugodi. Kusum had come to the city around six months ago, before which she was working in Gurgaon near Delhi, the police said.

According to the police, the incident came to light when Kusum’s flat-mate Nidhi Sharma, who worked for Intel, returned from her work around 8 pm. She found the flat door open and Kusum was lying on the floor motionless with blood spilled around.

“It looked like the victim was strangulated using a wire. There were few injuries inflicted to her neck with a sharp object with blood oozing out from her nose, mouth and neck. Our men have recovered the mobile charger wire from the crime spot, but not the sharp object,” said a senior investigating officer.

Nidhi informed her neighbours and her friends, who rushed to the flat and informed the police. Kadugodi police rushed to the spot and cordoned off the entire flat after which blood samples and hair strands were collected from the crime scene by the forensic team. Fingerprint teams too were busy collecting evidence. They had obtained the CCTV camera footage to ascertain the identity of the suspect.  There was also no forced entry, leading police to the conclusion that the assailant was known to the victim.

The body was shifted to Vydehi Hospital for post-mortem and her family members were informed.

“When the visitor did not do his entry at the security gate and was waiting for her down, it was Kusum who had come down from her flat speaking over a phone, who took him to the security and made him undergo the entry formality,” said a senior police officer, who had made inquiries with the victim’s neighbours on Tuesday night.

According to the police, Kusum had earlier lodged a cheating complaint in December last year on a person whom she got acquainted with on Shaadi.com.
 She alleged in her complaint that the man had contacted her on the pretext of marrying her, but started asking her for money.

“Once she transferred the money online to him, he blocked all communications with her, including e-mails, phone, and Whatsapp accounts, which prompted Kusum to lodge a complaint with the Kadugodi police,” a senior police officer said.