Bengaluru: Husband's friend held for killing woman

Bengaluru: The Chikkajala police have arrested a 33-year-old man for murdering his friend's wife to rob her valuables while she was alone at home on April 19.

The accused, Ramesh N., is a cook from Doddaballapur taluk. The deceased, Chandrakala a homemaker, stayed at Hunasamaranahalli in Bharathi Nagar along with her husband, Srinivas, who is a barber, and their two children. When the murder took place, her husband was at work, while her children were at their grandparents’ house.

Ramesh knew Chandrakala and her family through her brother Jagadishwara alias Jaggi, a resident of Bharathi Nagar. He also knew Srinivas well and visited their house often. Recently, Srinivas had bragged to his friends about buying new gold jewellery to his wife and he had also told them that he was going to gift her some more jewellery. Ramesh immediately planned the robbery to pay off his huge debts.

On April 19 around 3.30 pm, he snuck into Srinivas’ house to carry out his plan, but Chandrakala caught him red handed. As she was about to raise an alarm, Ramesh gagged her and strangled her to death. He took away her gold chain and earrings, locked the door from out and fled the place.

Around 5 pm, Chandrakala’s mother came to the house and found her daughter lying unconscious inside. She immediately rushed Chandrakala to a nearby hospital, where she was declared brought dead. Srinivas later filed a complaint with the Chikkajala police.

Ramesh, after stealing the jewellery, had pawned it for Rs 1.2 lakh and was planning to return the money to his lenders when the police got a crucial tipoff in the case. They were informed that Ramesh had visited Chandrakala’s house on the day of the crime, and picked him up. During the interrogation, Ramesh sang like a canary and confessed to the murder. The Chikkajala police, who had registered a case, arrested the accused on Saturday.