Vijayapura police arrest 12 for murder of six in Chadachan village

VIJAYAPURA: The Vijayapura police have arrested 12 people accused in the mass murder case of six people at Govindapura village in Chadachan taluk on May 20. The Chadchan police produced the accused before the Indi court. Tight security was arranged around the Indi court to prevent any untoward incidents.

Six people were murdered with a double-barrel gun and machetes on a farmland in Govindapura village. The killers murdered five members of a prominent family from Chadchan and another person who had come with them. Dundappa Nirale (65), Shivaputra Nirale (58), Chandrakant Nirale (55), Shivaputra’s children Rahul (25), Samarth (23), and Shabbir Attar (45) were killed.

The Nirale family had filed a complaint stating that the murders were carried out by members of Appugowda Patil’s family from Govindapura village. As of now, police have taken 12 of those involved in the massacre into custody.

According to Vijayapura Police Superintendent Lakshman Nimbaragi, the murders were committed over a 25-acre land dispute. The victims were shot at and hacked indiscriminately with various deadly weapons all over their bodies. It is said that 28 killers carried out this murder in a cinematic manner. The killers had also vandalised the car brought by the victims.

The victims were called to the farmland on the pretext of settling the land dispute, chili powder was thrown into their eyes, and six people were killed using a double-barrel gun and swords. Later, they hid in neighbouring areas including Akkalkot and Kudla village in Maharashtra, the SP said.

Police launched an operation with eight special teams and succeeded in arresting a total of 12 accused, including main accused Kallanagowda. More than 20 people were involved in the case and of these, the 12 arrested accused were interrogated and produced before the Indi town court today, and sent to jail. Among the 12 arrested accused, names of three accused are already in the FIR.

It is said that Appugowda Patil alias Golagi of the Golagi family, who had planned the murder, had called some men from his relatives’ side from the Sonna region of the Bhima riverbank in Kalaburagi district. They had already kept chili powder and swords at the farmland.

During the dispute, Kallanagowda first fired from his licenced double-barrel gun and killed Chandrakant’s children Samarth and Rahul from the Nirale family. Then the others joined in and hacked to death the remaining victims — Dundappa Nirale, Shivaputra, Chandrakant, and Shabbir Attar — with sugarcane-cutting swords.

The murdered Chandrakant Nirale and killer Appugowda were close friends from the beginning. But Appugowda killed Chandrakant and his entire family over 25 acres of land.