Justice eludes families as murders remain unsolved

Yet another year is coming to an end. But, justice still seems to be a far cry for several families whose loved ones were victims of grisly murders that rocked the City over the years.

While Bangalore police have cracked scores of mysterious murders over the years, at least two dozen killings that hit headlines in the past decade-and-a-half have still remained unsolved.

In all these cases, the police have neither established the motive behind the murders nor arrested the assailants. Having failed to crack the crimes, the police have filed ‘C’ report in most of these cases. The police file the ‘C’ report and close the case when the culprits are not traced for long. Incidentally, in most of these unsolved murders, the victims were senior citizens.

According to sources in the City police, investigations have reached a dead end with regard to murders of H Rajagopalachar, 80, a retired teacher who was stabbed at his house in Basaveshwaranagar police station limits in February 2002 and Keshava Prabhu, 78, a retired employee of the Police Department who was strangled at his house in Nandini Layout in March 2002. The police are yet to trace the killers of elderly women, Delucie Vaz, Nandini Rao, Sara Bai, Thangammal, Subbarathnamma and Jayadevamma, who were stabbed to death at their houses in Cubbon Park, Ulsoor, Girinagar and K R Puram police station limits respectively during 2002-06.

One such killing even led to an uproar in the State Assembly. The Opposition grilled the government over the grisly murder of G N Chandrashekar (65), a retired scientist of CSIR, at his house in Subhashnagar on Old Madras Road on July 25, 2001.

The assailants had slit Dr Chandrashekar’s throat, assaulted his wife, Padmaja, also a retired CSIR scientist, and looted Rs 25,000. Even after 13 years, the police have not been able to nab the killers.

Apparently, the most sensational double murder that rocked Bengaluru in the past 15 years was that of Panchagatti couple in November 2001. Jawahar Panchagatti, a software engineer and son of former KPSC Chairman S M Panchagatti, and his wife Anu were found dead in their house in Banashankari III Stage. While the house was rummaged, no valuables were missing. The assailants had not harmed the couple’s adopted twin babies. Though the police had initially claimed that they had definite clues, probe has still not made any headway.

A senior police officer said they could not solve some of these murders mainly due to lack of cooperation from the victim’s families. Pointing to the murder of an engineering student that took place in Kumaraswamy Layout in 2006, the official claimed that though the family members were aware of the assailant they were not revealing his identity. A close relative of the victim even threatened to commit suicide if investigations were continued.

If the victims or family members were into any illegal or immoral activities, their relatives fear that the family’s reputation would be damaged if the truth comes out. So, they do not cooperate with the police, sources explained.