Obsessed with sister-in-law, engineer plotted to kill her husband

A man arranged to murder his 33-year-old co-brother, driven by the obsession for his sister-in-law and wife of the slain man.

Investigating the murder case, Mahadevapura police arrested Sathya Prasad (41), an engineer from Hyderabad, and eight others who worked with him to kill Lakshman Kumar, a software engineer who lived with his wife in Horamavu.

The other arrested are Prashanth G (20), Prem (31), Dinesh (26), Lokesh (28), Kushanth K (30), Santosh (25), Ravi (37) and Sayida alias Savitha (25).

Obsessed with Kumar’s wife, Prasad drafted cab driver Dinesh to kill Kumar with the offer of Rs 15 lakh and a house. Dinesh is from Hoskote and was working in Hyderabad. Prasad downloaded Kumar’s picture from Facebook and gave it to Dinesh with Rs 1.5 lakh advance.

On January 1, Dinesh and his wife came to Bengaluru and stayed in a lodge in Devanahalli with the other accused. They obtained the number of Kumar’s two-wheeler and began planning the murder.

The accused planned to attack Kumar on January 30 at KR Puram when he was returning from office, but the plan came a cropper since Kumar did not turn up.

On February 3, the accused waited for Kumar in two cars near Horamavu bus stand and followed him as he rode a scooter. They attacked him at the flyover on Outer Ring Road in Mahadevapura. Prashanth stabbed him multiple times and escaped with the others. Kumar was taken to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Based on CCTV footage, police caught Prashanth and Prem Kumar on February 9. They arrested the others on Wednesday after the arrested duo spilled the beans about the murder plan.

Sathya Prasad confessed to being obsessed with his sister-in-law and arranged to kill her husband so that she would live at his house as she did not have any other relatives.

Mahadevapura police said Prasad tried to kill Kumar in July 2019 through Dinesh, but he survived the attack. A case of attempt to murder was registered at Hennur police station and the case remained unsolved.

Police seized two cars from the accused, besides a pair of bikes and lethal weapons used in committing the murder.