Belagavi police have launched an investigation into the death of a 47-year-old moneylender and real estate agent, suspecting it to be a case of murder following a complaint lodged by his daughter. Santosh Dandappa Padmannavar's body was exhumed after his 18-year-old daughter Sanjana raised concerns when she returned from Bangalore.
Unable to accept that her father's death was due to a heart attack, Sanjana immediately reported her suspicions to the authorities. Her complaint involved her 41-year-old mother Uma, her 30-year-old friend Shobhit Gowda from Mangaluru, two servants named Nanda and Prakash, and an unidentified man.
With the requisite permission of Sub-Administrative Magistrate Shravan Kumar, the police conducted a post-mortem examination after exhuming the body. Police Commissioner Iada Martin Marbanian said the autopsy report would be submitted soon.
Santosh lived with his wife and sons in a three-storey mansion in Anjaneya Nagar. His wife Uma informed both families that Santosh had died of a heart attack on the night of October 9. Notably, Santosh was a man of considerable financial power, owned several luxury cars, and maintained an extensive surveillance camera system in his home.
After the burial and funeral formalities, Sanjana expressed her desire to see the CCTV footage from the night her father died. But her mother's delay in sharing the footage led Sanjana to suspect that certain recordings had been deleted. She believed her father was in good health and suspected a heart attack was the cause of death, and sought the help of relatives in filing a complaint at Marmarti police station on Tuesday.
Investigators found that Uma was angry with Santosh because of the abuse he had subjected her to. Meanwhile, Santosh was furious that Uma had started a relationship with an online friend.
Authorities suspect that Uma may have given Santosh sleeping pills and that more than one person may have strangled him.
Although it was not possible to access the complete footage from the building's surveillance cameras, police were able to obtain some footage from a camera at Santosh's neighbor's house. One of the clips shows two people leaving the victim's residence at night.
