KOLAR: Seven years after a painter's highly decomposed corpse was found, police are pumping out water from Naaganukunte tank, on the outskirts of Mulbagal in Kolar district, where they had buried it to reopen the case, exhume the body, conduct another autopsy and investigate if they can find evidence about it being a case of murder.
The development comes in wake of one of the accused in the recent murder of Mulbagal city municipal council member Jaganmohan Reddy spilling the beans that the painter was killed at the behest of the slain councillor.
The body of the painter, Ramesh from Ganeshpalya in Mulbagal, was found in a highly decomposed state in early May of 2015. Police could not identify it and registered a unnatural death report. After a post-mortem examination, the body was buried near the tank itself. However, the recent rain has resulted in the tank brimming over and its waters are now spread over where the body was buried.
However, the label of a tailor on the shirt of the deceased provided leads for police about the dead man's identity. He was identified as Ramesh. Though the relatives of Ramesh urged police to conduct a thorough probe, cops could not make a headway.
However, one of the 14 persons arrested in connection with the murder of Jaganmohan Reddy, who was done to death by a group of people on June 7 this year when he was offering prayers to Gangamma temple near his house in Muthyaalpet in Mulbagal, told police about Ramesh's murder and Jaganmohan's links to it.
According to police sources, the accused, Jagannath, told them that Ramesh and Jaganmohan had a tiff during the Gangamma Jathra held at Mulbagal on April 28, 2015. Jaganmohan had allegedly told Ramesh that he would "finish him off". Jagannath claimed that Jaganmohan had asked his followers Soori and Appi to murder Ramesh. The duo took Ramesh to an isolated place on the outskirts of Mulbagal on April 30 and killed him by crushing his face with a boulder.
Jagannath also told police that Appi and Soori had engaged him as the driver of a vehicle used in the murder. Following this revelation, Kolar superintendent of police K Devaraj decided to conduct a fresh probe into the murder of Ramesh and appointed Masthi police inspector Vasanth Kumar to conduct the probe.
Vasanth Kumar said the process of pumping out water from the pond has already begun and once the water level recedes, police will be able to exhume the body.
