Udupi, Sept 4: Over eight years after the coldblooded murder of reputed paediatrician Dr Sharath Kumar, a local court in Bengaluru has convicted all the seven accused in the case.
The 63rd additional city civil and sessions court awarded life imprisonment to the seven convicts — Ravi Kumar, 36, of RMS Colony in Sanjaynagar; Aswathgowda, 33, of Geddalahalli; Shivaprathap, 33, of Nandini Layout; Chetan Kumar, 28, of Sanjaynagar; Kumar, 38, resident of Kavika Road; Bhushit, 28, of Vasanthnagar and Sandhya alias Sanjana, 32, of KEB Layout in Sanjaynagar. They were held guilty under sections 120B, 364A and 302 of IPC. All of them were nabbed by the cops within a few days after they committed the heinous crime.
Dr Sharath Kumar (then 50-year-old), who hailed from Udupi, was running a clinic on Sanjaynagar Main Road in Bengaluru. He also owned seven buildings and was getting Rs 8 lakh-Rs 10 lakh as rent every month.
Ravi Kumar, a gym instructor, masterminded the murder. He was aware that Dr Sharath had enough wealth. He hatched a conspiracy with his girlfriend Sanjana and four of his friends, who were searching for jobs. They planned to abduct the doctor and demanded a ransom of Rs 25 lakh. The accused feared they would be identified if the doctor was let off and hence killed him.
On April 9, 2010, Ravi requested the doctor to come to his house to attend to his ailing mother. When Dr Sharath visited the house, the gang demanded Rs 25 lakh for his release. When he said he couldn’t arrange such a large amount in cash, Ravi made Dr Sharath call his friend and jeweller Shailendra and asked him to deliver 572gms of gold jewellery to his house. Later, he forced the doctor to call Shailendra and asked him to deliver 264gms of jewellery to a medical shop. While Ravi collected the first consignment from Dr Sharath’s wife Anjali, Bhushit collected the second from Nagendra at the shop.
Initially, the accused thought of collecting the jewellery from Shailendra directly but feared being captured on the shop’s CCTV camera. They drove Dr Sharath in Kumar’s cab to Kunigal and went to Amruthur. They strangled the doctor and dumped the body near Amruthur before returning to the city.
When Dr Sharath didn’t return till April 10, Anjali lodged a complaint with Sanjayangar police. A special team was formed to crack the case. Based on cellphone records, cops traced his body to Amruthur.
Ravi had selected his close confidantes as accomplices. Kumar was the driver of the Toyota Qualis hired by the accused to take the doctor from the medical shop. On the basis of phone location, police traced one of the culprits. The fact that Ravi didn’t show up for work at the gym raised suspicion.
Ravi had managed to escape from Victoria Hospital on September 15, 2010 when cops brought him there for treatment. However, in a span of four days, CCB police rearrested him along with Sanjana, who was out on bail then.
Though the investigation couldn’t unearth any criminal history, the gang’s superstitious beliefs came to light. The members dropped one of the gold chains in the offering box (hundi) at the Shani temple in Bhoopasandra to offset any bad outcome.
Police could recover only 660gms of gold jewellery, along with the Qualis and Maruti Van used by the accused and Rs 1.3 lakh in cash. The gang had raised the money by pledging a part of the jewellery with a Muthoot Finance branch in RT Nagar. They collected Rs 1.5 lakh from the finance company.
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