The Tumakuru police claimed to have solved the Ashoknagar couple’s murder by arresting six men, including the son of the victims and Anand, the president of Mahalakshmi Layout unit of a pro-Kannada organisation.
On March 13, rice mill owner Gopal Shetty and his wife Roopa were stabbed to death by Anand and four of his accomplices. “The couple’s son Dheeraj, the prime accused, had hired a gang of five from Bengaluru to murder his parents,” Additional SP G B Manjunath told reporters at a press meet here on Friday.
The police have arrested Anand and his accomplices R S Harish, Chandramouli, Ravi and Ramachandrareddy, all residents of Bengaluru, in connection with the murder.
During questioning, Dheeraj told the police that he had an affair with a Tumakuru-based girl belonging to a different caste. He wanted to marry her, but his parents had opposed the inter-caste marriage. His father Gopal Shetty threatened to consume poison if he went ahead with his plan.
Dheeraj, hell-bent on marrying the girl, hatched a conspiracy to kill his parents. He hired Anand and his associates to execute his plan, Manjunath said.
Anand and four others had given a bottle containing poison to Dheeraj and told him to lace the food with it and give it to his parents. But he dropped the idea as he thought the smell of the poison would give away the plan.
Dheeraj and the gang of five then hatched a plan to hack the couple to death. They closed the deal for Rs 9 lakh. As agreed, Dheeraj gave the first instalment of Rs 5 lakh after the gang executed the murder, the police officer said.
The police recovered a Toyota Fortuner car and an imported car worth Rs 20 lakh, which was gifted to Dheeraj by his father on his birthday, two daggers and Rs 1.5 lakh in cash from the arrested. The police are also looking at the property angle.
The arrested have been sent to judicial custody. The IGP Central will announce a cash prize for the probe team, headed by DySP B T Chidanandaswamy, for cracking the high-profile case, said Manjunath.