Brother, son hired killers to murder mining baron for Rs 100-crore land: Police

The murder of a mining baron in the city four months ago was a contract killing plotted by his own brother and son. The motive? Rs 100 crore worth of real estate registered in the name of the victim’s now-defunct company, police say.

Police have arrested the five suspected contract killers.

Singanamala Madhav, 70, the managing director of Bellary Steel and Alloys Limited, was found with his throat slit on Gubbalala Main Road near Mantri Tranquil apartment in southern Bengaluru around 1.30 pm on February 14, 2020. His wife, Parvathi, 67, filed a police complaint, naming their estranged younger son Singanamala Harikrishna and Madhav’s brother Singanamala Shivaram.

The couple was living in Thalaghattapura along with their elder son, Singanamala Madhu Babu.

While the company was wound up after losses, it owns 2,000 acres of land, which Madhav was trying to sell. Harikrishna and Shivaram eyed the property, police say.

In his lifetime, Madhav himself had filed several complaints of kidnap and assault against Harikrishna and Shivaram at SJ Park, Viveknagar, JC Nagar, Subramanya Nagar and Ballari rural police stations.

Even after months after the murder, the jurisdictional Thalaghattapura police didn’t make any arrest. They achieved a breakthrough recently after tracking down five contract killers: Goa residents Riyaz Abdul Shaikh (40) and Sharukh (24), Yelahanka resident Shabaz (23), Yeshwantpur resident Adil Khan (28) and Sulthan (24), of Shamanna Garden. Harikrishna and Shivaram remain at large.

Shivaram and Harikrishna earlier tried to hire two other gangs but they failed to do the “job”. They then hired Shaikh, a Ballari native running a fish business in Goa, whom they had known for long. They offered him Rs 25 lakh for killing Madhav and paid him Rs 7.5 lakh upfront, police said.