Software engineer arrested for killing techie wife

BANGALORE: A software engineer was on Friday arrested for the alleged murder of his wife at their residence in Vinayaka Nagar near HAL Airport on November 7.

Police accused Manoj Kumar S, a DELL employee, of murdering his wife Laxmi in a bid to reunite with his girlfriend. The 24-year-old victim was a systems engineer with IBM.

Kumar, who was in love with Anuradha Reddy, married Laxmi four months ago due to pressure from his family. He, however, continued his relationship with Anuradha, a divorcee.

On November 7, Kumar left home for work at 9:30 in the morning and returned around 12 noon, police said. Laxmi was on sick leave for three days and was at home. He then threw chilly powder on her face.

"When she was washing her face he wore a pair of gloves and picked up an iron rod and hit her head. Later he smothered her to death," police said.

Kumar later ransacked the house, apparently to mislead the police by projecting the crime as a murder for gain. He allegedly took away the mangalsutra, her mobile phone and Rs30,000 and hid it in a vacant plot in Koramangala. Police said they have recovered the mangalsutra, the mobile phone and cash.

The police initially had suspected a group of construction laborers working in the same building and even picked up 15 of them for interrogation. DCP (south-east) Soumendu Mukherjee constituted four teams to crack the case.

On further investigation, police found out that Kumar had left his office around noon and returned later, which led to his arrest.

Commissioner of police Shankar M Bidari announced a cash award of Rs15,000 each to the police officers involved in solving the case.