The police are busy pumping water out from Naganakunte, a pond on the outskirts of Mulabagil in the Kolar district of Karnataka.
Reason? They want to dig out a corpse from a grave buried near the pond seven years ago.
What happened in 2015?
On April 28, 2015, there was a village fair in Mutyalapete. On account of Gangammana Jatre (Gangamma’s fair), a grand orchestra was organised. Ramesh, a painter, was drunk and started poking fun at then municipality member Jaganmohan Reddy. Irritated, Reddy slapped Ramesh, but the latter didn’t care much about the incident.
In a fit of rage, Reddy is said to have warned Ramesh that he would ensure the latter died. Before this incident, too, Ramesh and Reddy had tiffs a couple of times.
A couple of days later, police found a decomposed body of a man near Naganakunte tank on the outskirts of Mulabagil. The name of the tailor’s shop where the shirt was stitched led the police to Ramesh.
They then arranged for a burial by the side of the lake and informed his family. The family was sceptical about his sudden death and insisted that a probe be carried out. With no clues, the case was closed.
The 2022 murder
On June 7, 2022, Reddy was brutally murdered by a group of men in front of a temple. When Reddy went to open the doors of Gangamma temple in Mutyalapete, six men attacked with a sword. The incident was recorded in the CCTV camera of the house in front of the temple. The six, including Jagannath, Dhananjaya, Mahesh, Balaji Singh, and their eight aides were arrested. Search is on for the others who helped plot the murder.
During his interrogation, Jagannath told police that Reddy had got Ramesh killed. Suri and Appi, henchmen hired by Reddy, were paid Rs 1 lakh each to execute the murder. They used Jagannath as their driver on the day, said police.
According to the confession, the murderers took Ramesh to a lonely spot outside the village and smashed his head with a heavy stone.
Kolar SP Devaraj ordered the immediate arrest of Suri and Appi and reopened the seven-year-old case.
A special team led by Masti circle inspector Vasanth Kumar is reinvestigating Ramesh’s murder. The police have decided to dig out the remains of the corpse and conduct a post-mortem.
As it rained heavily for the past couple of days, the lake is overflowing. Hence the police have now got a trench made near the lake to drain the excess water and retrieve the body.
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