Forensic analysis helps crack murder after a year

A murder that was swept under the carpet has been cracked after a year. A 30-year-old woman has been arrested for murdering her alcoholic husband with the help of her lover, police said.

According to N Shashikumar, DCP (North), Sukhitha was in an unhappy marriage with Umashankar who often came home drunk and quarrelled with her. Married for 13 years, the couple were living at Dasenahalli, a village near Hesaraghatta in northern Bengaluru. They have a son and a daughter.

Frustrated by marital discord, Sukhitha found solace in Srinivas, 31, their neighbour and a school bus driver by profession. The two eventually got close and started meeting secretly.

Umashankar got wind of the affair and warned his wife. Sukhitha and Srinivas realised they didn’t have a chance as long as Umashankar was alive and decided to eliminate him.

On February 25, 2018, Umashankar got drunk, fought with his wife and went to bed. The children slept in another room. Meanwhile, Sukhitha invited Srinivas over. As the two were having some intimate moments, Umashankar got up and caught them red-handed.

He got furious but Srinivas and Sukhitha overpowered and smothered him.

Srinivas left soon after. Sukhitha waited until the morning to raise an alarm that her husband wasn’t waking up. As relatives and friends arrived, she told them he had got very drunk the last night and died in sleep. But Umashankar’s uncle Ashwathappa suspected something fishy and called the jurisdictional Soladevanahalli police. A case was registered and the body was subjected to post-mortem.

The police probe, however, failed to establish that it was a murder. It took a forensic examination to conclude that Umashankar was strangled. Police changed the course of the investigation and interrogated Sukhitha, whom they had suspected from the beginning. She couldn’t withstand the interrogation and revealed the truth.

Police later arrested Srinivas. Both of them have been remanded in judicial custody, the DCP added.