Police arrest four including ZP member Raghavendra Kanchan in Kota Double Murder case
Udupi: The Udupi district police arrested four more persons including Kota Zilla Panchayat memebr on Friday, February 8, in connection with the Kota double murder case.
The arrested have been identified as Harish Reddy (40) resident of Manoor, Mahesh Kumar (38) resident of Kodavoor, Ravindra Poojary (28) and Kota Zilla Panchayat member Raghavendra Kanchan (38).
On January 26 late night two youth Bharath (25) and Yathish (26) were brutally murdered with lethal weapons by the accused Rajshekar Reddy and Chandrashekar Reddy during a fight that erupted over the digging of a toilet pit at Manoor in Kota, Udupi District.
Lohit Poojary friend of the accused had stated that he had attempted to stop his neighbour Rajshekar Reddy from constructing a toilet leech pit close to his well. He feared that the pit would pollute his well. When Reddy was adamant, Poojary approached the gram panchayat, health department officials and lodged a complaint against Reddy.
Based on the complaint, officials had inspected the spot. On Saturday, Poojary and his brother, fearing that their neighbour Reddy had hired assassins to murder them sought the help of their friend Bharat after locking themselves in a room. Bharat, along with Yathish, and few other friends rushed to the spot.
While Poojary was narrating the incident of being stalked by Reddy’s assassins to Bharat and others, duo Rajshekar Reddy and Chandrashekar Reddy arrived at the house armed with lethal weapons. They first attacked Bharat and later Poojary and Yateesh, who rushed to the rescue of Bharat, the complainant stated.
Both Bharath and Yathish, who sustained serious injuries in the attack were declared brought dead to the hospital. A case was registered against Rajshekar Reddy and Chandrashekar Reddy in the Kota police station.
The police arrested two persons Rajshekar Reddy and Ravi alias Medical Ravi on Thursday. After arresting Harish Reddy, Mahesh Ganiga, Ravindra Poojary and Raghavendra Kanchan the number of accused arrested in the case has raised to six.
Among the accused, Harish Reddy faces seven criminal cases since 2001 whereas Rajshekhar Reddy faces nine cases since 1993. Mahesh is an accused in a previous murder case. Raghavendra Kanchan is also involved in a previous murder attempt case.
To crack down the murder case the district SP Laxman Nimbargi formed 5 teams including Kiran DCIB Inspcetor, Srikanth CPI Brahmavar, Sampath Kumar PSI Women’s Police station, Manjunath CPI Udupi and Mahesh Prasad CIP Kaup. The investigation is led by DySP Udupi Jaishanker.
