Bengaluru: When a Dell employee, Payal Surekha, was found with her throat slit and stab injuries all over her body in RBI Layout, J.P. Nagar, in December 2010, all hell broke loose and the police department came under intense scrutiny for Bengaluru not being safe for software professionals.
Then J.P. Nagar Police Inspector Umesh S.K., now serving as DySP (Internal Security Department), worked hard to nab the culprit, James Kumar Roy, a gym instructor. The charge sheet was filed within the stipulated 90 days.
The case was then handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court as Payal’s parents suspected the role of her husband, Ananth Narayan Mishra, whose father was a retired SP and mother a serving DySP then.
“I was called by over a 100 times by CBI officers and they repeatedly questioned me about naming James as the accused. I challenged them to reject the evidence I had collected,” said Umesh.
“If we had done the slightest mistake, I would have got arrested. When that happens, all the medals are held back and officers are not considered for recognition of services by the central government,” he said.
Accused James Roy, the son of an ASI, got a letter posted to Payal’s parents that her husband had given Rs 10 lakh supari to kill her. “One of the witnesses Raghu Gowda had disappeared. The CBI thought it was an attempt to fabricate the witness. We had to slog for one year before finding him in a live band,” Umesh said.
On Wednesday, the 32 Additional Special Judge of the Special CBI court pronounced James Roy as the only culprit. The CBI chargesheet is the same as submitted by the J P Nagar police. The sentence will be pronounced on Thursday.
The murder: Payal Surekha and Ananth Narayan Mishra fell in love while doing a business course in the city and started living together. They went back to Odisha, where they hailed from, and opened a gym. Accused James joined as a tutor, but Payal fired him as he was allegedly misbehaving with girls.
When Payal got a job with Dell in Bengaluru, the couple moved back to the city and took a service apartment.
James met one of their common friends, Bhavani Singh, and came to know that the couple, Payal and Ananth Kumar Mishra, were settled in the city and decided to eliminate them both.
He got to know that Payal was alone and Ananth had gone to Odisha. That day, Payal had come back home after the night shift at 2 am. When James rang the bell, she opened the door and went inside to receive a call when he slit her throat and stabbed her all over the body.
When the police arrested James, he confessed that he killed Payal as he nursed a grudge. But her parents suspected that their son-in-law and others committed the crime. The case was transferred to the CCB. When the CCB failed to submit its report in eight months, Payal’s parents approached the Supreme Court, which handed over the case to CBI.
The love: Couple were in true love. Ananth Kumar Mishra called Payal all the time when he was away. After the murder, he had hallucinations and was mentally ill for almost six months after her murder.
When asked whether policing is a thankless job, DySP Umesh said, “No, it is not that way. It was a challenge and I had to protect the honor of my evidence and investigation, and I did it.”
