Couple found dead at home

A software professional and his wife, an ayurvedic doctor, were found dead at their residence at Amarjyothi Nagar, Vijayanagar, here on Tuesday night.

Sandeep Hegde, 28, and Sowmya Kumari, 25, were married for the last three and a half years. Hegde, from Moodabidri, was a test engineer with a leading IT firm here. Sowmya Kumari of Ujire was pursuing a course in yoga at Vivekananda Yoga Kendra, Jigani. They had no children.

Police are investigating the cause of the deaths. The tragedy came to light when Anup Kumar, Sowmya Kumari's relative, visited the couple’s home on Tuesday night. Anup Kumar said Hegde's mother, Shashikala, had alerted him that her son was not responding to phone calls. On her request, Kumar went to their house.

“When there was no response from inside, we entered the house by breaking open the door. Sowmya Kumari was lying on the bed with a part of her veil tied across her neck, while another part was hanging from a ceiling fan. I noticed blood and foam in her mouth. I found Sandeep’s body hanging from a ceiling fan in another room,” he stated in a complaint.

Anup Kumar told Deccan Herald that both families were shocked. They are clueless about the cause of the tragedy as the couple had no marital discord or financial problems.

The house owner, Veena Subramanya, said the couple were tenants in her house for the last three years. They were “happily married”, she said.

“Sowmya came to my house on Monday and I spoke to Sandeep the same night. That was my last meeting with them,” she told Deccan Herald.

Sandeep Hegde was the only son of his parents. His father, Chittaranjan, is a businessman at Mudbidri. Hegde did his MBA at Mangalore and later shifted to Bangalore after he got the job.

Shashikala, his mother, has a heart ailment. She was inconsolable and swooned when she heard about her son’s death. Sandeep and Sowmya visited Mudbidri days before the tragedy. They stayed with Sandeep's parents for three days, said family sources.

The bodies were taken to Mudbidri for cremation after an autopsy at Victoria Hospital.