It was almost the perfect crime: a murder planned and executed by a carpenter, who allegedly strangled a 27-year-old labourer to death in an isolated place on the outskirts of the city and set fire to the body on the night of October 30 last year.
The police recovered the highly decomposed body from the outskirts of Bagepalli two days later and recovered the label of a tailor. They registered a case of murder and Superintendent of Police Mithun Kumar G.K. formed a special team to trace the identity of the deceased.
The police reached ‘SS Mens Wear’ in D.J. Halli and with the help of the tailor’s book, identified the deceased as Syed Mustafa, a construction labourer from D.J. Halli who was missing.
With the help of the local police, they recovered the CDR details and found that he was having an affair with his neighbour. Suspecting that the murder could have a link to this, the police summoned the woman who confessed about the affair and told the police that she suspected her husband to be behind the mysterious missing case of Mustafa.
The police picked up the husband, Babavali, who, after detailed interrogation, confessed that he had killed Mustafa to take revenge.
Babavali, 38, a carpenter, came to know that Mustafa was having an affair with his wife and used to have frequent fights with her. Unable to bear the harassment, the wife allegedly told him that she did not like him anymore, which irked Babavali, who decided to eliminate Mustafa, the police said.
The police said that as per the plan, he pretended that he did not know anything about the affair and befriended him before inviting him to his hometown in Bagepalli for a party. Mustafa agreed and on the fateful day, Babavali borrowed an autorickshaw and along with Mustafa, drove to the outskirts of Bagepalli where he offered him liquor.
After some time, when Mustafa was intoxicated, Babavali strangulated him to death and poured petrol on his body and set it on fire before returning home to his wife, the police added.
The police arrested Babavali on the charges of murder and destroying evidence and remanded him in judicial custody.
