11 years later, gangrape accused held in B'luru

Hameed Ashraf | NT BUreau

Bengaluru: In a significant development, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials cracked a 11-year-old gangrape and murder case by arresting three accused allegedly involved in the incident.

In February 2013 a private bank employee and a resident of Sanjaynagar in Bengaluru, Balakrishna Pai, filed a missing report with the jurisdictional police after his wife, Vijaya Pai, did not return from her work and went missing.

She was an employee at another private firm in Electronic City. A few days later the Chikkajala Police discovered a body of a woman in Nilgiri grove and initiated an inquiry into the matter. A shocked Balakrishna identified it to be his wife.

Following an investigation, the police suspected Balakrishna's role and arrested him accusing him of killing his wife. However the police did not find any evidence against him and he was finally discharged after remaining in custody for 90 days.

As there was no progress, the Karnataka High Court handed over the case to the CID. For a few years, the probe failed to achieve any breakthrough. However with the senior officials reopening the investigation into the old cases, technical and scientific evidence collected in Vijaya's murder case were re-examined by a team of CID.

Following a verification of the Call Data Records (CDR), the officials finally zeroed in on a person identified as Deepak. Interrogating him cracked the entire crime mystery. Following Deepak's arrest, the police also arrested two of his accomplices identified as Hariprasad and Narasimhamurthy.

The three accused were bank colleagues of Balakrishna and used to work in the same branch in Mahalakshmi Layout. It was revealed that the trio had gangraped and murdered the woman and disposed of the body at a Nilgiri grove in Chikkajala Police Station limits.

The CID have filed a chargesheet with the court against the three accused in the case.