A PUC student who went missing on May 3 was found dead — buried in a truckload of sand — four days later. Police believe he faced harassment from his college mates.
Somanath R (19), a student of Samruddhi College, went missing from his house in Kathmandu Layout, Hoskote, around the midnight of May 3.
His father Ramesh R, a glass and plywood businessman, filed a missing complaint with the Hoskote police the next day.
The body was discovered around 3 pm on May 7 when workers at a building site in eastern Bengaluru’s HAL area unloaded m-sand from a truck. The workers, the truck driver and others were stunned to find a body in the sand mound. They immediately called the police.
It was sheer luck that the police identified the deceased. Save for a facemask and a small torch in a pocket of his trousers, there was little that could help the police identify him.
But the mask provided the lead as it carried the name and phone number of a plywood dealer.
When police contacted the dealer named Ravi Kumar, he told them that the son of a sub-dealer Ramesh R has gone missing. Kumar positively identified the body as that of Somanath.
Somanath’s parents told the police that he had left home after leaving an ominous message: he faced harassment and intimidation from some college mates and decided to kill himself.
Police found Somanath had exchanged messages with his college mates about a girl studying in the college.
On May 3, the day Somanath went missing, screenshots of the messages were posted on a WhatsApp group created by the students. Some students objected to Somanath’s messages and warned to beat him in the college.
Police suspect that Somanath got scared after reading the messages and killed himself. The autopsy report is awaited.
Published 09 May 2022, 20:27 IST