Murder most foul

Despite taking the police for a ride, the accused person couldn't fool them anymore what with the cops chancing upon a diary and unravelling the murder mystery, writes K. SRINIVAS REDDY.

THE CASE had all the trappings of a mystery. A bloated body found in the rear seat of a Maruti parked underneath a banyan tree. All windows rolled up and doors locked. The stench of death emanating from the car was the only give away. Otherwise everyone mistook it to be a broken down car parked on the kerb of the highway.

It was believed to be a suicide since the police found a coke bottle with some liquid. The unmistakable smell of poison was there. In all possibility, it could be a suicide. People in distress are known to choose isolated spots and end their lives. But there was one missing link. The absence of a suicide note was, too, conspicuous. There was a briefcase, a cellular phone, bunches of keys, a driving license which identified the victim as J. Koteshwar Rao.

Here was a typical case. The body is identified, but how does one trace him? The police found a sticker of a servicing station. When the police called up that number, they could locate address of Koteshwar Rao. The relatives came but they were not sure about the suicide. He was very rich and appeared to have had no enmity with anyone. He left home on May 8 saying he would go to his farm house in Kothur on the Mahabubnagar road.

The experienced investigators could immediately conclude that it was death due to poisoning. But the question remained whether it was homicidal or suicidal poisoning. The doubt that had been nagging the officers was that whether he was administered poison forcibly and the body dumped there. However, circumstantial evidences appeared to rule out the possibility, and equally perplexing was the suicide theory. Why should he end his life?

The only course of option for the police was to dig out the past life of Koteshwar Rao. To begin this exercise, they first went to his house and checked his almirah in the hope of finding at least a suicide note or some clue which could unravel the mystery. Indeed, their perseverance paid off when they chanced upon his personal diary. There were some entries which interested the police. The dead man had written that he loaned Rs. 20 lakhs to Gopikrishna and that the latter had paid some money and that some more was to be paid.

At this juncture one of his relatives recalled that on May 7, a stranger called on him and had an argument with him. The police did not lose any time and picked up Gopikrishna (24), a Civil Services aspirant. Despite long sessions of questioning, the youngster maintained that he had indeed taken the loan, but insisted that he had paid the money back. But there was one entry in the diary that Gopikrishna had paid Rs. 50,000 on May 7. But he was denying this payment.

The police were puzzled. Why would Koteshwar Rao make a mention about Rs. 50,000 being paid and that Gopikrishna owed around Rs. 12 lakhs more to him? It was time to confront Gopikrishna with hardfacts and the diary was shown to him. Only at this juncture, Gopikrishna reportedly confessed that he tried to take the police for a ride by insisting that he had cleared off his debt. Since Koteshwar Rao was no more, Gopi reasoned out, he could lie his way through about the payments. But the question still remained. Was Rao murdered?

For the seasoned investigators, the needle of suspicion was pointing towards Gopikrishna. But how to cull out truth was the biggest problem. They tried a different approach. They took him into confidence and asserted that they would try to help him in every possible way, if only he told truth, the entire truth. It was only then he spilled the beans. Koteshwar Rao was forcibly given poison by him and three others, the police said quoting the confessional records.

As the youngster began recounting how the murder was committed, the investigators were incredulous. Koteshwar Rao had been pestering Gopi to pay up the dues and he decided to get rid of him. He roped in Srinivas, Krishna and Mohanlal promising them to pay money. They lured Rao to come to a hotel in Himayatnagar on the fateful day, May 8. Gopi kept Srinivas and Krishna locked in an apartment rented by him and took his prospective victim to the flat promising to pay up the money.

As soon as they entered the flat, the foursome pounced on him and pinned him down. Gopi had already mixed poison in a coke bottle and poured the drink into Koteshwar Rao's mouth. With three persons pinning him down, the old man could not put any resistance other than biting the fingers of Mohan and Gopikrishna while they tried to pry open his mouth. For over an hour they forced him to drink poison in small quantities and when he died, the body was bundled and covered with a bedsheet. They carried the body downstairs and put it in his car which was later abandoned on the highway.

Having made the confession, Gopi offered to show the police the scene of offence and when they took him there, he jerked himself free from the constables and ran to the terrace only to jump down and end his life. His three accomplices were arrested on murder charges.

(The case was investigated by Shamshabad Sub-Inspector R. Jagadishwar Reddy, Rajendranagar Circle Inspector V. Surendar Reddy and DSP T. Narsinga Rao).

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Enter NTR, Balakrishna roars!
Next     : Insurance cover for students, teachers