Ex-student planned teacher's rape, murder

Kumuda (32) was sexually assaulted and murdered by four persons, including the former student, identified as Manjunath (20), on Saturday night. The incident took place earlier on Saturday morning when Manjunath offered a lift to an unsuspecting Kumuda.

The car, which was being driven by Narasimha, an associate of Manjunath, also had three other occupants. Once Kumuda took the lift, Narasimha drove the car toward Honnudikke Hand Post in Tumkur district.

When she realised that she had been trapped, Kumuda shouted and shrieked for help. The culprits had rolled up the windows, sped to Honnudike Hand Post, forced Kumuda out and raped her one after another before strangling her to death.

She is survived by an eight-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son, besides her husband, Appaji, a small-time businessman. There was no one to come to her rescue.
Even Manjunath, once a student of the same school –– Basavanapura government primary school –– showed no mercy. Police said that it was Manjunath who had conspired to rape and murder Kumuda. The other associates of Manjunath have been identified as Ravi and Raveesh.

This is not the first time that a school teacher has been murdered. A year back, Narasimha and Raveesh, along with four others, Venkatesh, Nagesh, Sumanth and Ramesh, had murdered Sujatha, a government school teacher in Baladakere in Kunigal.
At that time, the police had suspected the involvement of Sujatha’s husband and brother-in-law for the murder. But investigations into Kumuda’s gang-rape and murder led to the arrest of the entire gang of eight persons. However, the probe indicated that Sujatha’s husband and brother-in-law had no role  in her death.

Police said that Manjunath is a BCom student in a local college and had got mixed up with some anti-social elements. They had planned to target Kumuda after they noticed that she would walk to the school alone.

According to the investigation, Manjunath was in need of Rs 50,000. He connived with three others to accost Kumuda, who taught English in the Basavanapura school and was Manjunath’s teacher.  The car that was used to commit the crime was rented from one Prakash. On the evening of August 1, Prakash called up Narasimha to know his whereabouts. Narasimha is believed to have told him that he was in Dharmasthala which is about 250 km from here.

Two hours later, Prakash found the car parked in front of Narasimha’s residence and it had apparently been cleaned. Suspicious, Prakash then informed the police who raided Narasimha’s house and arrested him. His interrogation led to the subsequent arrest of Manjunath and the others.

DH News Service