Bengaluru: The DJ Halli police on Saturday cracked the mysterious murder of a cab driver, whose body was found in Krishangiri in Tamil Nadu in March, with the arrest of three unemployed men on Saturday. The accused had planned to steal a cab, but ended up killing the driver and disposing of his body in a drain in Hosur which was later found in Krishnagiri.
The accused were identified as Deeman Shankar Das and Aroop Shankar Das, both siblings and hailed from Assam, and Bharath Pradhan, 22 from Odisha.
They stayed in Kachanayakanahalli and were earlier working as contractors providing labourers at construction sites. "To earn quick money through easy means, the three targeted cab drivers. They booked cabs from Majestic area and took the drivers to deserted areas before threatening them and stealing cash and other valuables. But there were no cases registered against them," the police said.
The deceased, Rinson Soman (23), after finishing his studies had bought a car along with his friend Sijan a year ago and started working with Ola.
Around midnight on March 18, the accused approached cab drivers near KHB near Veerannapalya Gate, but the drivers insisted that they book the cab through the app. However, Rinson, who was nearby, agreed to take them to Hosur for Rs 1,500.
On their way to Hosur, the three asked him to stop the vehicle to attend nature's call in a deserted area.
Rinson, who was scared, refused to stop the car and continued to drive.
Around 3 am, they asked him to stop near Bedarahalli, saying they stayed close near Bedarahalli Government School.
As soon as he stopped, Dheemant held Rinson's neck and gagged his mouth, while Bharath stabbed him with a screwdriver in the stomach, chest and his neck Aroop then took out a towel from his bag and strangled Rinson. They later threw the body into a drain and escaped with Rinson's two mobile phones and the car.
On March 20, Rinson's father Soman, who is a retired army man, filed a missing complaint at the D.J. Halli police station, saying his son had not returned home from work.
The police traced his car's last seen GPS location to Electronic City. Sifting through the CCTV images, they found that the cab had headed towards the Hosur tollgate, but had not passed through the tollgate.
Meanwhile, the Sipcot police contacted their DJ Halli counterparts saying they had found an unidentified body in their jurisdiction. The DJ Halli police matched Rinson's photographs and later called his father to confirm his identification.
The police then tried to trace his mobile phones with the help of IMEI numbers to track the killers.
The phones were found to be in use at Kachanayakanahalli, and soon, all the three accused were in the police net. The police recovered the car worth Rs 11 lakh, a Lenovo mobile and an iPhone.
