Woman, 3 kids found dead, husband missing

DHNS

Puttur, 14 Jun 2012: A heart wrenching incident of a man hacking his wife and three children to death at Kakkur of Bettampadi village in Puttur taluk, has come to light on Thursday afternoon.

 

The deceased are Sandhya V Bhat (45), a teacher by profession, her three children named Vedya (18), Harigovind Sharma (15) and Vinutha (12). It is said that Sandhya’s husband Venkatramana Bhat made his family to death mercilessly who is absconding after executing the crime.

 

The incident came to light on Thursday afternoon when a metre reader visited the residence of Bhat to read the electricity meter to issue the bill.

 

When the bill collector arrived at the residence, the main door was closed and a strong foul smell was emanating from the house. When he peeped into the house, he realised that the inmates were dead.

 

While the bodies of Sandhya and her two children Harigovind and Vinutha were found at one corner of the house, decomposed body of Vedya was found on a cot inside the house. The pull over used by Vedya has been left intact on her body.

 

The rotten bodies in blood stained surrounding had signs of deep injuries on head, stomach and various parts of the body suggesting that the victims were attacked with fatal weapons.

 

Sandhya, who was working in Ubaradka Higher Primary School in Sullia, was transferred to Puttur Kolthige Kuntikana School. However, the order had not yet reached her.

 

Sandhya was living in Sullia along with her youngest child Vinutha, who was studying in the same school. She used to visit her home at Kakkur along with Vinutha during weekends.

 

Since she was transferred to Puttur, she had enrolled Vinutha to Bettampady Navodaya school. Vedya was enrolled to Bettampady Government First Grade Degree College this year while Harigovind had gained admission to Panaje Subodh High school for 10th standard.

 

Absconding

Head of the family Venkatramana Bhat is absconding leaving behind several questions. Pin of suspicion is pointing at Bhat. A bucket of water left in the courtyard of the house has turned blood red hinting that Bhat must have washed his hands and weapon in the same water after executing the crime.

 

Since four syringes and bottles of some medicine has been recovered from the surroundings of the house, it is said that Bhat must have either injected some medicines to the family members or must have administered sleeping pills to them before killing them. It is suspected that the murder must have been committed two to three days ago.

 

Warning

Venkatramana Bhat is said to have been conducting research for which he had been depending on computer for filing his findings. Since he had no knowledge of computers, he had been banking on a lady named Vimala from the same village to make computer data entries. He had installed a computer in a small hut like structure outside the house.

 

Last Monday, Bhat had called Vimala and had requested her to come over on Tuesday morning to help him enter the data. Accordingly, the lady had visited Bhat on Tuesday where she found him standing at the courtyard of the house with the main door closed behind. Bhat had asked Vimala to return saying that he will not need her help in future.

 

When Vimala had questioned about Sandhya, Bhat had advised her to be within her limits or to face dire consequences.

 

Staged robbery

Recently, Bhat had complained to Sampya police that a gang of seven miscreants had barged into his house and stole away seven sovereign of gold and Rs 50,000 cash.

 

However, during the investigation, several points revealed by Bhat have been found to be false. Since Bhat sensed the possibility of his complaint turning on him, he is suspected to have fled the village. There is suspicion of Bhat having committed suicide too.

 

Some sources have informed about the strained relationship shared between Bhat and his wife.

 

IG/SP’s visit

Inspector General of Police (Western Range) Prathap Reddy and Superintendent of Police Abhishek Goyal among others visited the spot.