Police exhume body of moneylender after daughter suspects murder, launch investigation

Belagavi police have launched an investigation into the death of a 47-year-old moneylender and real estate agent after his daughter complained that it could be murder.

Santhosh Dundappa Padmannavar’s body was exhumed following a complaint from his 18-year-old daughter Sanjana.

The girl, who studies in Bangalore, returned to the city a day after his death. She wasn’t convinced her father died of a heart attack. She then filed a complaint with the police.

His complaint concerns his mother Uma, 41, his friend Shobit Gowda, 30, from Mangaluru, two servants, Nanda and Prakash, and an unidentified man.

Police exhumed the body and conducted the post-mortem after obtaining permission from sub-divisional magistrate Shravan Kumar.

The autopsy report is expected soon, Iada Police Commissioner Martin Marbaniang said on Wednesday.

Santhosh lived with his wife and sons in a three-storey building in Anjaneya Nagar. His wife Uma informed his family and relatives that he died of a heart attack on the night of October 9.

It may be mentioned that Santhosh was a man with great financial influence and owning a range of luxury vehicles. He had installed a dozen video surveillance cameras in his house.

The last rites were performed and the body was buried the next day. His daughter Sanjana expressed her wish to see his last moments on the house’s CCTV camera. But his mother was slow to show him. The girl suspected that her mother had deleted some images.

She suspected that her father was in good health and that it couldn’t have been a heart attack that killed him. She sought help from some relatives to lodge a complaint at the Malmaruti police station on Tuesday.

Investigators found that Ms. Uma was angry with Santhosh for his mistreatment of her. Santhosh was angry that Ms Uma, in the meantime, had developed a relationship with an online friend.

The officers suspected that the woman had given him sleeping pills and Santhosh may have been strangled to death by more than two people.

Although the police could not obtain the entire footage from the building’s CCTV cameras, they obtained some from the houses of Santhosh’s neighbors. One of the clips shows two people leaving the victim’s house at night.