Tenant couple held for murdering 65-year-old woman; fleeing with her gold mangalsutra in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: A 65-year-old woman was murdered for gain at her house in Uttarahalli in Subramanyapura police station limits on Tuesday afternoon. Police on Wednesday arrested a couple, who were the victims tenants. The victim was identified as Srilakshmi, a resident of New Millennium School Road in Uttarahalli. The arrested were identified as S Prasad Srishail Makai, 26, and his wife Sakshi Hanamantha Hodhlura, 23. The couple are from Solapur in Maharashtra. Prasad is a centering worker while Sakshi is working as a receptionist at a jewellery shop in Padmanabhanagar. On Tuesday around 9.30 am, the victims husband, 70-year-old G Ashwatha Narayan had gone to his agarbatti factory in Cottonpet. When he called his wife around 2.15 pm, she did not answer calls. He then assumed that she must be sleeping. Around 5.30 pm, Narayan called his tenant Phaniraj requesting him to check on his wife. Phaniraj who claimed that he was outside informed Narayan that he had asked his wife to check. Around 6 pm, Phaniraj called Narayan and told him that his wife had fallen unconscious on the floor. Narayan, who rushed home, saw his wife lying dead. He then called his sister-in-law Sampathi Lakshmi to inform about her sisters murder. Sampathi Lakshmi told Narayan that she had called Srilakshmi around 1 pm when she told that a couple had come to her house and were checking the television and she came out of the house to attend the phone call. Police said the aged couple, married for 40 years, do not have children. The police found out that the incident happened between 1 pm and 6.30 pm. There were scratch marks on her right side of the neck, lips and face. Her nose ring, finger ring and earrings were intact, while the assailants had escaped with her mangalasutra weighing around 40 to 45 grams. Based on several clues, the accused couple who lived in the same building was arrested. It was found that the couple murdered the elderly women by smothering her using a small pillow and had taken it with them after the committing the crime, the police added.