Techie murdered by husband, who burns her body and misleads police

The husband of a 29-year-old woman, who was reported missing, and his associate were arrested for murder, destruction of evidence and misleading the police.

Chandrakanth S Kondali (38) strangled his wife Akshatha at their flat in SMS Elite Apartment in Kempapura on January 6. He tried to dispose of the body by taking it across the border to Tamil Nadu and burning it at a remote place.

Married for 10 years, Kondali and Akshatha fought frequently over his suspicions that she was having an affair. Working as a software engineer for Wipro, Akshatha quit her job in December and had plans to join another IT firm by January 15 and wanted to tour north India with her friends in the meantime.  

Kondali ran a bar and restaurant named Silver Spoon in Shantinagar. The couple's four-year-old son stayed with Akshatha's parents.

After strangling Akshatha to death, Kondali called up his associate Rajvir Singh, who worked with him at the bar, with the instruction to rent a car and bring it to the apartment's basement.

When Singh arrived with the car, they wrapped Akshatha's body in a blanket and laid it in the boot. Asking Singh to drive to Tamil Nadu, Kondali spoke to him constantly on the phone, directing him to find a remote place to burn the body. Singh drove to an isolated spot in Shoolagiri in Hosur district, doused the body with diesel and set it ablaze.

Singh then drove to north India with Akshatha's mobile phone, which he turned on regularly. On January 7, the Shoolagiri police received information about a woman's burnt body, and booked a case of murder and attempt to destroy evidence.

Victim's parents suspicious  

Kondali gave contradictory information about Akshatha's disappearance to her parents, who live in Sahakara Nagar.

He told Akshatha's mother, Rekha, that she took Rs 50,000 and had gone on a trip to north India. Despite believing it at first, Akshatha's parents grew suspicious when they failed to receive a call from her from January 7. Her brother asked Kondali why Akshatha did not pack her clothes or wore her slippers.

Having not heard from her daughter for 18 days, Rekha complained to the Sampangiram Nagar police, prompted by Kondali, who said Akshatha disappeared after taking Rs 50,000 from him.

During the probe, the police found that Akshatha's phone was active in several states over a period of time. It also appeared odd that only Akshatha's parents were keen about finding the missing woman, while Kondali seemed indifferent.

When Akshatha's family revealed their suspicions about him, the police took Kondali for questioning on February 5, and he confessed to the crime. They took him and Akshatha's parents to Shoolagiri, where they made a positive identification of her body with her clothes and other personal effects.

The police also arrested Singh, and confiscated Akshatha's mobile phone and the car he used for the crime.