The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `I did not plan Pratibha's murder for flat and insurance money'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 30, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`I did not plan Pratibha's murder for flat and insurance money'

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: In his emotionally charged deposition, Pavan Shetty, husband of the slain BPO staffer Pratibha, on Thursday narrated the trauma of the search for his missing wife leading to the discovery of her decomposed body.

Deposing before a fast track session court, Mr. Shetty broke down recalling several events surrounding his wife's murder. "We were in love with each other and got married." On December 16, 2005 when he was asked to identify Pratibha, "I could barely see the state of the body. I fainted and was taken away from the scene."

Mr. Shetty, who works with a finance company, said he made it a point to be in regular contact with his wife who worked night shifts at HP Globalsoft which she joined in March 2005. She would give a missed call to his cellphone before leaving home for office by the cab and he would call her back for details about the cab and the driver. She would again give a missed call on reaching her workplace.

Around 2 a.m. on December 13, 2005, she told Mr. Shetty that the driver on route No. 405 had picked her up as the regular cab No. 131 had not come. When he did not receive her second call, he called her cellphone only to receive the message it was switched off.

"I thought she might be in a meeting," Mr. Shetty said. When she did not come back home as usual at 2 p.m. on December 14, he made panic calls to two of Pratibha's friends, one of whom informed that she had not turned up for work.

He called Pratibha's mother and found that his wife had not gone there too.

He then went to HP Globalsoft office where it was confirmed that Pratibha had not travelled either in cab on route 131 or on No. 405. Meanwhile, he told Pratibha's uncle to file a complaint with the Kumaraswamy Layout police.

On the morning of December 16, the police asked him to accompany them in search of a body following the accused Shiva Kumar's confession. The body was discovered on a vacant land on Anjanapura Main Road.

Mr. Shetty said before their marriage in February 2004, Pratibha had purchased one of the four flats given to his father in the apartment built after demolishing their house in Mysore. She had taken a loan of Rs. 14 lakh from UCO Bank. The flat, still in her name, has been repossessed by the bank.

Brushing aside speculation that he asked Pratibha to take an insurance policy, he said she had taken a New York Maxlife policy for Rs. 13.5 lakh in October 2005 on the advice of her friend. He denied that he had planned his wife's murder for the flat and insurance money.

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

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section