Mysuru:  Nazarbad Police, on Tuesday night, have arrested a real estate agent who had taken a woman to show a site and had murdered her. He had gone absconding after stealing her jewellery and burying her.

While the arrested real estate agent has been identified as 40-year-old Keerthi Kumar, a native of K.R. Nagar and residing at Vidyaranyapuram in city, the woman, who was murdered by him, has been identified as Mahalakshmi (54), wife of BBMP Assistant Executive Engineer B.R. Umesh and a resident of Buddha Marga at Siddarthanagar in city.

Mahalakshmi, who had left her house on May 27, had not returned and her husband had lodged a missing complaint at Nazarbad Police Station. Nazarbad Police, who had registered a case, began their investigation.

It may be mentioned, Star of Mysore had published a report titled ‘Woman goes missing from city’ on May 30.

Police, who collected the call details from Mahalakshmi’s mobile number, found that Keerthi Kumar had called her on her mobile number before she (Mahalakshmi) went missing.

Based on the clue, Police tried to nab Keerthi by tracing the location of his mobile phone number, but Keerthi had switched off his phone since a week. The Police succeeded in tracing him on Tuesday night. After taking Keerthi Kumar into custody, the Police brought him to the Police Station and interrogated him, during which the accused narrated the whole incident.

He (Keerthi Kumar) is said to have told the Police that Mahalakshmi had called him over the phone and told him that she was interested in purchasing a property even if it is a commercial one and asked him to show a good property.

Keerthi then took her and showed some sites but Mahalakshmi did not show interest in them. On May 27, Keerthi took Mahalakshmi and showed a vacant site on Mysuru-Bengaluru Road between Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital and Toll Gate. She had shown interest in this site.

Accused Keerthi then asked Mahalakshmi to give him a good commission to which Mahalakshmi agreed only if the site was sold as per her price and began to bargain.

But Keerthi said that he had put a lot of effort and demanded higher commission from Mahalakshmi who began to argue with him.

Irked over the arguments, Keerthi is said to have told the Police that he slapped Mahalakshmi, who collapsed on the ground and on examining her, found that she was dead.

He has further stated that unable to know what to do, he removed the jewellery worn by Mahalakshmi and dumped her body inside a pit nearby. He then covered the pit with debris and scattered medical waste which was found nearby and fled from the spot.

Yesterday morning, the Police took Keerthi Kumar to the spot where he had buried Mahalakshmi and on digging it, the Police found that the body had completely decomposed with only the bones remaining. The Police then summoned the doctors from MMC&RI mortuary to the spot, where the doctors conducted post-mortem.

Nazarbad Police, who have now registered a case of murder against Keerthi Kumar, are investigating and are in the process of recovering the jewellery stolen by Keerthi Kumar.

The Police are likely to produce the accused before a Magistrate today.