Bengaluru: In one of the most bizarre cases in the country’s IT capital, a woman was arrested for stabbing her mother to death and flying to the Andaman Islands with her friend hours later.
Even as more details continue to unravel, police officers say they are finding it hard to dig deeper into the case.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Mahadevapura zone) MN Anucheth said, “Things are not clear yet. Frankly, this is the first time I’m seeing a case of a daughter killing her mother… It is very difficult for even us to digest the facts as they come out.”
Anucheth’s team has been tracking the case for the last few days. On Wednesday, a few police officers from Bengaluru took a flight to Port Blair and arrested Amrutha C, 33, and her boyfriend Sridhar Rao.
Amrutha is accused of stabbing her 52-year-old mother Nirmala to death early on February 2. She allegedly stabbed her mother and younger brother, Harish, left them to die, and walked out to a spot nearby where Rao was waiting on his bike. The duo then directly rode to the airport and boarded a pre-booked flight at 6.30am to Port Blair for a “five-day break”.
Amrutha’s brother, however, survived the attack and managed to call for help about an hour after she left.
“We have to wait for the duo to come back before we can question them. The versions we are getting from her brother and others are somewhat confusing,” said Anucheth.
Sources said the motive behind the murder didn’t seem to be financial gain or revenge, but psychological.
What officers have gathered from the questioning, so far, is that Amrutha was fed up with the large amount of debt the family was in. It had taken a loan of Rs 4 lakh in 2013 for the treatment of Amrutha’s father who was suffering from lung cancer.
Over time, as the family members failed to pay back the loan, the debt grew to about Rs 18 lakh and this cycle continued.
Amrutha perhaps didn’t want her family to go through this crisis and allegedly decided to kill her mother and brother and later, kill herself. The pre-planned trip was the one last holiday she may have had promised her boyfriend before she took her own life.
Whether Rao knew about the murder, was part of its planning or knew about her plans to commit suicide after returning home is yet to be ascertained.
The duo worked together at a software company till 2017 when Amrutha quit her job. She did not do any regular work since then, but took up assignments.
Harish is also a techie at a private firm in the city’s Whitefield area. The sounds of things being taken out from cupboards woke him up around 4am on the fateful day.
Amrutha told him she was packing for a tour and minutes later, she stabbed her mother with a kitchen knife. She then stabbed Harish and left the home assuming they were dead. Harish called his uncle and aunt who live nearby around 5am and raised an alarm, after which police were called.
At present, Rao has been arrested only as an abettor — for harbouring a murderer. The fact that his phone was still functioning and it was the phone’s location that helped police track them gives rise to the suspicion that he may not have been aware of the murder and had merely taken a friend on a trip.
The trip was, after all, pre-planned; tickets were booked; he was waiting near her home to pick her up at the appointed time and they left the bike in the airport’s parking lot before checking in.
It is also possible that Amrutha did not want to entangle him in a crime and hence, kept her counsel. However, police officers are unable to decipher if Rao didn’t find anything amiss over the last three days that they spent together.
Two police teams will return with the duo on Thursday, after which officers are hoping a clearer picture on the case would emerge.
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