Accused goes free in 1993 murder case in Mysuru

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: It was a sensational case back in the 1990s that shook Mysuru. The murder of a city man in a popular hotel by a hired assassin from Mumbai using chemicals had shocked everyone.

Thirty years later the main accused in the case has been exonerated by the High Court of Karnataka.

C Mahesh Kumar, now residing in Mumbai was the main accused in the murder of Raghunath Murthy. Kumar allegedly had an illicit relationship with Murthy’s second wife Mala.

The duo, police alleged, hatched a plan to eliminate Murthy after Mala became pregnant with Kumar’s child. Kumar hired an assassin from Mumbai.

They allegedly got Murthy drunk at Room number 356 at Krishna Continental Hotel in Nazarabad and later suffocated him with Zinc Oxide causing his death.

The police booked Kumar, Mala and the Mumbai assassin for the murder of Murthy. The prosecution lined up 25 witnesses including the siblings of Murthy who testified to the illegal relationship between Mala and Kumar.

The hotel’s room boy was also a witness, so was an auto rickshaw driver who dropped the victim and the two alleged killers to the hotel.

The material evidence included a hotel key and a brass plate from the hotel room which was seized from the Mumbai residence of the hired assassin. He had allegedly taken it as a souvenir and written “in the memory of Raghunath Murthy” on a paper and stuck it on the brass plate.

Even before the murder, Mala had obtained a transfer certificate of her son from the school with the plan of relocating to Mumbai.

The prosecution brought all these before the Trial Court. Since Mala could not be traced, the case was split up and the trial was conducted against Kumar.

Acquitted by trail court The trial began in 1996 and ended on August 29, 2016 with the III Additional Sessions Judge, Mysuru acquitting Kumar. The Trial Court based its judgment on the fact that the entire case hinged on circumstantial evidence.

The hotel room was booked under the name of Deepak Mathura Bai and it could not be established who did it. (CrlA 630/2017)