Mandya: Kikkeri Police have arrested a 27-year-old youth and his accomplices on charges of murdering a 70-year-old man for property. 

The arrested are 27-year-old Puneeth (grandson of the deceased) of Kikkeri and his accomplices — 22-year-old Pradeep, 22-year-old Manu and 22-year-old Chandrakanth alias Gunda. The deceased is Eeregowda (70).

The accused, along with his accomplices, had rammed a car into the bicycle on which Eeregowda was returning from his field on Mar. 20 at about 6.30 pm and had fled from the spot.

There were some issues over the distribution of property between Eeregowda and his grandson Puneeth and the village elders had held a Panchayat in this regard. The issue had later reached the Court too.

Puneeth, who had his eye on his grandfather’s property, had reportedly decided to kill his grandfather so that the property could be his without any issues and hatched a plot along with his accomplices to murder Eeregowda.

To make the incident look like an accident, the accused along with his accomplices allegedly murdered Eeregowda by ramming a car into the cycle on which Eeregowda was riding and had fled from the spot. 

But Eeregowda’s granddaughter K.S. Divya, expressing doubts over Eeregowda’s death, had lodged a complaint with Kikkeri Police. Mandya Superintendent of Police (SP) Dr. M. Ashwini, Additional SP Dr. Dhananjay and Dy.SP N. Naveen Kumar had formed two teams led by Circle Inspector M.K. Naveen and Sub-Inspector H.K. Naveen to arrest the culprits following which the Police teams nabbed the accused and seized the car used for the crime. The accused were produced before a Court.

Sub-Inspectors Byatarayagowda and C.S. Suresh and staff K. Madhu, S.N. Prasannakumar, Syed Javed, Nagaraju, Revanna, Umesh and others took part in the operation.