Drunk man murders pregnant woman

 

Mangaluru, 13 Apr 2015: A pregnant woman was murdered by a man at Gopady Village of Kundapur Taluk in Udupi District on Saturday. 

 

The accused Prashant Mogaveera, 32, is a resident of Malpe and a habitual offender. He has been arrested. The deceased Indira, 31, was alone at home when the incident took place. According to police, Mogaveera, a habitual offender indulging in petty thefts, was released from jail on March 17 after he was caught by Malpe police in a theft case. 

 

After his release, he went to his house in an inebriated state and started pestering his family for money. His father threw him out of the house. Prashanth later went to his kin’s place in Gopady. Here too, he troubled his brother for money. The latter decided to lodge a complaint against Mogaveera.

 

 In the meantime, at 4.30pm, the accused in his drunken state went to Indira’s house, situated 300 m  from  his brother’s house. Indira was homealone as her husband was away on multi-day fishing trip.  He  asked  the woman to fill water in a small bottle that he carried. When Indira gave him water,  he  asked  her to get a  bigger bottle. While Indira went near the firewood shed to search for the bottle, he  went in  and assaulted  her. 

 

 According to police, the accused saw that the victim was wearing gold jewellery. He tried to snatch her  chain and rape her. When the woman tried to scream, he took a boulder and smashed her head. He  fled  when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. 

 

 He also left the gold chain at the scene of the crime. The locals who saw Prashant with blood stained  clothes on the beach alerted the police. 

 

 According to police, the accused did not rape the victim; however, they are waiting for the postmortem to  confirm the same. 

 

 The deceased woman has a four-year old child. This is the second tragedy in that house with Anand’s brother Manjunath drowning at sea just a month ago.