Family kills landlord over rent dispute

Six people, including two women, smothered a 62-year-old landlord to death over a long-standing rent dispute.

The group killed Ramesh Kumar Jain on November 28 in West Bengaluru. Jain, residing in RPC Layout in Vijayanagar, owned two houses in Deepanjali Nagar. He rented out one of the houses, while the first floor of the other building was vacant.

The Kengeri Gate police arrested the six, including the mother-daughter duo of Sabeena Taj (58) and Heena (29). The other arrested are Islam Khan, Abdul Azeem, Syed Ahmed and Mohammad Jubair. All the men were in their late 20s and lived in Deepanjali Nagar.

The police said Sabeena and Heena resided on the ground floor of Jain's house for the past seven years. Sabeena's husband had suffered a stroke two years ago and has since been a patient at home. As they were not paying rent to Jain, he asked them to vacate the house.

The family filed a court case and refused to pay rent to Jain, despite his attempt to collect the dues several times, saying the matter is sub-judice.

Six months ago, Jain filed a trespass complaint with the police in an effort to evict the family from his house. Enraged by this, the family nursed a grudge against Jain.

At 3.30 pm on November 28, Jain left home on a two-wheeler to collect rent from those living on his properties. When he did not return late in the night, his son Rakesh called up the tenants to check if Jain had visited them. The tenants said they did not see Jain, following which Rakesh filed a missing person complaint with the Vijayanagar police.

Body found in drain

On the night of November 29, the Kengeri police received information about a man's body lying in a drain on the Railway Parallel Road in Kengeri Satellite Town.

The police identified the man as Jain from the driving licence and the photograph they found in his person, and then learnt that it was the same man who was reported missing from Vijayanagar a day before. Rakesh identified the body.

The police picked up Sabeena and Heena for questioning. They revealed during the interrogation that they took the assistance of four men and smothered Jain with a pillow in their house and later transported the body in Khan's autorickshaw to dump it in the drain in Kengeri, the police said.

The Kengeri police have taken up a case of murder and have also booked the accused for destroying evidence.