Police exhume moneylender’s body after his daughter suspects murder, launch probe

The victim’s daughter has named her mother Uma, her friend Shobit Gowda from Mangaluru, two servants and an unidentified man

The Belagavi Police have launched a probe into the death of a 47-year-old moneylender and realtor after a complaint came from his daughter that it could have been murder.

The body of Santhosh Dundappa Padmannavar was exhumed following the complaint from his 18-year-old daughter Sanjana.

The girl, who is studying in Bengaluru, returned to the city a day after his death. She was not convinced that her father died of a heart attack. She then complained to the police.

Her complaint names her 41-year-old mother Uma, her 30-year-old friend Shobit Gowda from Mangaluru, two servants, Nanda and Prakash, and an unidentified man.

The police have exhumed the body and carried out the post-mortem after obtaining due permission from Sub-divisional Magistrate Shravan Kumar.

The post-mortem report is expected soon, Police Commissioner Iada Martin Marbaniang said on Wednesday.

Santhosh lived with his wife and sons in a three-storey building in Anjaneya Nagar. His wife Uma informed his family and her family members that he died of a heart attack on the night of October 9.

It may be mentioned that Santhosh was a man with a lot of financial clout and owned a range of luxurious vehicles. He had installed around a dozen CCTV cameras in his house.

The last rites were performed and the body was buried the next day. His daughter Sanjana expressed her wish to see his last moments on the CCTV camera in the house. But her mother delayed showing it to her. The daughter suspected that her mother deleted some footage.

She suspected that her father was healthy and that it could not have been a heart attack that killed him. She sought the help of some relatives to lodge a complaint at the Malmaruti Police Station on Tuesday.

Investigators have found that Ms. Uma was upset with Santhosh for the ill-treatment being meted out by him. Santhosh was angry that Ms. Uma, meanwhile, developed a relationship with a friend online.

Officers suspected that the woman gave him sleeping tablets and that Santhosh may have been strangled to death by more than two people.

Though the police could not get the full footage from the building’s CCTVs cameras, they have obtained some from those in the houses of Santhosh’s neighbours. One of the clips shows two people leaving the victim’s house at night.

Published - October 16, 2024 08:10 pm IST