Mysuru: A large crowd including the family members and relatives of a murder victim and Police officials had gathered at the Jodi Tenginamara Burial Grounds this morning as the Cops were waiting for the permission to exhume the body for post-mortem.

Details: The victim, identified as Raghavendra (24), a resident of Kumbarakoppal had gone missing since three days and his father had lodged a missing complaint with Vijayanagar Police on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a Police team was formed to conduct investigation and trace Raghavendra. The Police team picked up four friends of Raghavendra for questioning and during interrogation, the four are said to have told the Police that they had murdered Raghavendra and had got him buried at Jodi Tenginamara Burial Grounds.

It is learnt that one of Raghavendra’s friend had accompanied his (Raghavendra) father to the Police Station to lodge the missing complaint. As he was behaving in a suspicious manner, the Police who had a doubt on him, had let him go.

Later, when the investigation gained pace, their (Police) doubts became strong and took him (Raghavendra’s friend) into custody for questioning during which he spilled the beans. The Police, based on the information provided by him, took the other three into custody.

During interrogation, the accused are said to have told the Police that they, along with Raghavendra, had a few drinks at a bar and later got into a drunken brawl. When they came out of the bar, the accused allegedly smothered Raghavendra to death near the bar and got the body buried at Jodi Tenginamara Burial Grounds.

It is learnt that the Police had obtained permission and the post-mortem was underway, in the presence of the Tahsildar,  when we went to Press.