‘Dirty things’: Judge not to hear pre-arrest bail pleas in Bengaluru gym trainer murder

Senior advocate S Balakrishnan, who has filed an impleading application on behalf of the gym trainer’s father, told the court he would like to make submissions on the merits of the case. The court noted that it had not heard the case of the two accused on its merits.

Earlier, a sessions court in the Bengaluru rural district rejected their anticipatory bail petitions.

Rs 25-lakh ‘supari’ to end a relationship

Vijay Kumar’s decomposed body was found in the Bannerghatta forest area on the outskirts of Bengaluru on June 9 after he went missing on June 6. Police investigations revealed that he was killed on June 6 after being lured to a drinking party by a gang allegedly hired by the advocate at the instance of the realtor.

The gang was led by a local gangster identified as Sriram, who was a client of Lokesh.

Lokesh is accused of receiving Rs 25 lakh from the realtor to orchestrate the murder to end the relationship between the gym trainer, who was married, and the realtor’s young daughter.

The realtor and the advocate are accused numbers six and seven in the case.

The investigation papers presented in court “clearly go to show that since the deceased Vijay Kumar was giving trouble to the daughter of accused no.6,” he “gave supari to petitioner to kill the deceased” by passing money through accused no.8 to accused no.1, the sessions court noted while rejecting the advocate’s plea on July 22.

Court setbacks for the advocate

The sessions court also noted that the advocate had gone missing, with his phone switched off, soon after the police arrested four people on June 17 in connection with the murder. But he was communicating with the main accused before the murder, on the day of the murder, and after the murder, the court added.

“A practising advocate involved in murder cases is against his advocacy. An advocate should always work to reform society. Therefore, the offences alleged against the petitioner are non-bailable and also very serious in nature,” the court ruled on July 22.

The high court earlier rejected the advocate’s petition to remove his name from the accused list in the case, after the police sought to collect CCTV footage from the advocate’s office to find visuals of meetings with the murder accused.

The Bannerghatta police have arrested Srirama and four others in connection with the murder—Sumith, Venkateshaiah, Babu, and Vikas. The CID unit took over the investigation on June 29 after a person identifying herself as the realtor’s wife alleged on social media that the police had falsely implicated her husband and sought favours from him.

The police later said evidence gathered from multiple arrested accused and other evidence pointed to the role of the realtor and the advocate.