BENGALURU: The Soladevanahalli police have arrested a man, who was accused of murdering his uncle over a family dispute near Himalaya Dhaba on Saturday. The accused was identified as Bharath.
When the police started questioning Bharat, he revealed that about two years ago, it was he who floated the rumours that a house in Thigalarapalya, where five members of a vernacular journalist’s family had committed suicide, was haunted. Bharat had gone to the house on new moon day to commit theft and when locals saw him, he ran saying that the house was haunted.
On Saturday, Bharat called Keshavamurthy, who is his sister’s husband and uncle, for a discussion. Keshavamurthy had left his wife and had not returned home for many days. After getting Bharat’s call, Keshavamurthy went to meet him along with his friend Kallesh. They were drinking alcohol together when they got into an argument over the issue and Bharath stabbed Keshavamurthy and Kallesh with a knife. Keshavamurthy died on the spot while Kallesh’s condition is critical.
Bharat had gone to stea at journalist Hulagere Shankar’s house in 2021, where five members of the family had ended their lives. Bharat took stole gold jewellery from the house, but when some locals spotted him, he raised the haunted house bogey and escaped from there. Local residents had also filed a complaint with the police about the ‘haunted house’. From then, locals had started believing that the house was indeed haunted.
On September 19, 2021, five members of Shankar’s family committed suicide. Shankar was an editor with a vernacular newspaper. According to the Police, Shankar’s wife Bharati (51) committed suicide first. A day after the incident, their two daughters Sinchana, Sindhurani, her nine-month-old baby boy and son Madhusagar committed suicide at their Thigalarapalya residence.