BENGALURU: The Kadugodi police have solved the mysterious murder case of a software engineer and have arrested his Facebook friend who administered cyanide to kill him and escaped with his valuables. The accused, Karthik, 30, a resident of Rajajinagar, had completed BE in Telecommunications and a habitual offender with three cases against him. He has been accused of murdering, Sohan Haldar, 35, who hails from West Bengal, at his flat in Prestige Shantiniketan near Whitefield on last Friday.
According to the police, Haldar had posted an advertisement in a group on Facebook to sell his KTM bike. Karthik was also a member of the group and noticed the advertisement. He hatched a plot to murder Haldar and rob him of his valuables. He contacted Haldar on Facebook and became friends with him on the pretext of buying the bike Karthik visited Haldar 2-3 times under the pretext of negotiating the price.
“The duo had also gone to hotels and had become friends. On August 3, Karthik went to Haldar’s flat saying that he would give the money and buy the bike. He went in the afternoon and while they were talking he pushed him down and forcibly administered cyanide in his mouth. As Haldar died in a few minutes, the accused escaped with his mobile phone, purse that had his debit and credit cards, and his bike. Three of Haldar’s flat mates found that he had not gone to work since Wednesday and checked on him only on Friday night. They found him dead in his room and had alerted the police,” the police said.
“It was a mysterious death as there were no external injuries on his body, but the post mortem report revealed it was a murder. Also, the preliminary probe had revealed that he had posted an advertisement to sell his bike and the CCTV footage recovered from the apartment had revealed Karthik’s visit. Based on these clues, Karthik was traced and nabbed on Wednesday. He confessed that he committed the murder to make money and lead an easy life. Though he had worked in many companies earlier, he could not stick for more than six months with any company and was not keen on taking up any employment. Thus he committed crime,” the police added.
Further, it is learnt that he purchased Silver Potassium Cyanide (SPC) at Peenya Industrial area by claiming that he wanted SPC to make electroplate and had paid Rs 2,700 for it. After committing the murder, he had managed to withdraw Rs 27,000 from Mr Haldar’s account and was trying to sell his bike. “He has a background of making friends with strangers and robbing them. His family members were fed up of him as he was an habitual offender.
