Murdered Israeli woman's body found in freezer

The body was found after the man who confessed to have killed her about 20 days ago in his 11th floor apartment off Kanakpura Road surrendered before the police.

Although the police did not allow reporters to enter the apartment, so that crime scene clues did not disturbed, sources said the Israeli woman has been identified as Tamar Farha Abraham who held two passports -- one Swiss and the other Israeli. According to the police, Tamar reached Bangalore in the second week of April in search of Lokesh Chandra Das, 31, nearly four years after the two met in Rishikesh.

The police believe it was in the hill station of Rishikesh that Tamar and Lokesh got close to each other and soon their friendship developed into a relationship. When she reached Lokesh’s apartment on April 15, there was an altercation between him and Tamar over his abandoning her in Rishikesh.

When Lokesh’s wife Jyothi Vaidyanathan also got involved in the quarrel, he locked her and their month-old child into a room before the fight between Tamar and him worsened.
In a fit of anger, Lokesh picked up a blunt metallic object and hit Tamar with it.

The force of the blow felled Tamar to the floor. After hiding the body, he sent away Jyothi and their child to his in-law’s house in Nagarbhavi. Lokesh subsequently returned to his flat, strangulated Tamar to ensure she was dead.

According to his confession to the police, Lokesh said that after killing Tamar he purchased a large refrigerator, which cost about Rs 30,000, into which he stuffed her body and left it to freeze so it could not be detected by the foul smell a decomposing body would give out. The police described Lokesh as a bearded man, not more than 5 feet, 3 inches tall.

On Thursday, after confessing to the crime, which appeared to be the result of passion, Lokesh smiled when he was brought to the spot where the police reconstructed the events that led to the murder.

A painting of Tamar found in the house in which she was murdered, has led police to believe that it was the work of Lokesh who is also a yoga instructor.

He told the police that he had tried on several occasions to dispose off the body but could not bring himself to get rid of it. After weeks of introspection and unable to bear the guilt of a homicidal crime, Lokesh first confessed to his wife.

Subsequently, Jyothi, a software engineer with a reputed Bangalore IT firm, and her family convinced him to surrender to the police.

Around noon on Wednesday, Lokesh reached the Bangalore police commissioner’s office with a written confession. However, since his apartment is outside the city's police jurisdiction, the case was referred to the Ramanagaram police station which took him into custody.