The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Adeep murder: two arrested

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 31, 2006
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Adeep murder: two arrested

Staff Reporter

Tracking credit card purchases helps police in tracing the accused

IN POLICE NET: The accused in the Adeep Lahari murder case being produced by the police at a press conference in Bangalore on Saturday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: Tracking of debit and credit card purchases helped the police catch two persons involved in the murder of software professional Adeep Lahari.

The cards belonging to Adeep were stolen after he was murdered and the body abandoned on Garudacharpalya tank bed on December 21.

The two, who are security guards, had withdrawn nearly Rs. 70,000 using the stolen debit cards in Kolar. They had used the same ATM ten times, the police said. They purchased lifestyle goods including branded clothing and sunglasses worth Rs. 1 lakh in Bangalore. All the purchases were made during the week following the murder.

Advanced technology

The police used advanced technology and traced the identity of J. Raju (23) and Venkatesh (28) of Koratagere.

"Fortunately, the debit and credit cards were not deactivated," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Gopal B. Hosur said. The police traced the movement of the two accused and caught them in Varthur on Saturday.

On December 21, Raju who had recently resigned his job in ITPL, and his friend Venkatesh working in Genesis Company, were waiting in their Maruti car a few metres away from ITPL. They were employed by an agency in R.T. Nagar.

They noticed that Adeep who worked in I-2G software company was driving alone. The two bumped their car into Adeep's. When he came out, one of them had pushed Adeep back into the car and held him tight from the back seat, the police said.

The other accused started driving the car. "He was holding the steering wheel with one hand and holding Adeep's neck with the other," Mr. Hosur said. It was during this period that the accused had extracted the pin numbers of the debit and credit cards, Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao said. Adeep's hands and legs were tied and he was gagged.

When he tried to shout for help near White Field Railway Level Crossing, the accused smothered him to death. It was here that they shifted the body to the rear seat, the police said.

Intensive vehicle checking had made it difficult for the accused to dispose the body, Mr. Hosur said. They had passed through various bylanes and come to the tank bund where they dumped the body. They had abandoned Mr. Adeep's car in Yeshwantapur and gone to Kolar in another vehicle, the police said. In the early hours of Tuesday, the police had found Adeep's car. They recovered Adeep's laptop and gold ring and some cash withdrawn from the ATM.

`Probe missing links'

Identifying some "missing links" in the investigation, Adeep Lahari's parents have urged the city police to throw more light on the incident.

Reacting to the arrest of the two accused on Saturday, Adeep's father Arun Chandra Lahiri said the version given by the police did not offer a true picture. He said he was sure that more than two people had been involved, including those known to Adeep.

"I strongly believe that the accused must have waylaid him," he told The Hindu from Kolkata.

Adeep's father-in-law S.S. Mukherjee said the police should build a strong case that would help in getting exemplary punishment to the accused.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka