Seven months after an Andhra Pradesh woman in Bengaluru went missing, the police discovered that she was murdered, based on a viral video of a drunken man. To prove she was dead, the police had neither the dead body nor any eyewitnesses. However, by piecing together bits and pieces, the police were able to form a chain of events that a court held “unerringly” pointed to the accused.The case dates back to 2021, when India was reeling under the second wave of Covid and Bengaluru was facing certain restrictions, almost close to lockdown. At this point, a missing case haunted the Bengaluru city police before it was cracked. But it did not end there.On March 29, 2021, a man named Kurnool Venkatesh walked into Subramanyanagar police station seeking their help to find his missing sister, K Seetha, 47.Seetha and Venkatesh are among four children of a temple priest, Srinivas Achar, near Mantralayam in Andhra Pradesh. Seetha, who is separated from her husband, had come down to Bengaluru and stayed at her sister Geetha’s house. On March 26, 2021, Seetha left her sister’s house to meet someone in the Majestic area, stating she would return the same night, and never returned.Almost a buried case initiallyInitially, the police did not bother to search for her much, assuming she may have gone somewhere with someone known to her. While Venkatesh and Geetha continued their search, it did not yield results. They also went to Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and filed a missing complaint, but no action was taken there too.As days passed, neither the police nor anyone made any efforts to track Seetha’s whereabouts. It was almost a buried case, in which neither Bengaluru nor Kurnool police took any interest initially.A police officer says, “If you remember, it was Covid-19 second wave during March, and every police station was busy handling the crisis, and there were restrictions on public movement. Some of the aged police personnel were afraid then even to meet complainants.”Story continues below this adAlso read | Solving Crime | When a passenger turned killer: How Karnataka Police cracked a cabbie’s murderMany months passed, and it started fading away from the memories of the people. But Geetha received information from Mantralayam village about a video circulating showing one person named S Sathyanarayana alias Sathya, 43, allegedly under the influence of alcohol, explaining how he and his associates killed Seetha and dumped her dead body into a canal. Seetha’s family members were shocked to hear it and decided to use it as evidence to push the police to further investigate the case.On November 13, 2021, Venkatesh filed a habeas corpus case before the Karnataka High Court seeking directions to the police to investigate the case. It was then that the police had no choice but to take the matter seriously.Subramanyanagar police inspector Sanjeev Gowda H B recalls, “I went through the video, and it was clear those involved in the case were very much alive, and a case was registered on November 24, 2021 for charges of kidnapping and murder.”A police officer recalls issuing notices to Sathya and others whom he had named in the video, but none turned up. “It was then that our team went to Mantralayam, took them into custody and brought them to Bengaluru. S Noor Ahmed, 41, and Sathya were arrested. It was too late that Besta Kumar, 42, and Raghu alias Mental Raghu, 43, had died even before a murder case was registered. Story continues below this adThe police then started using their tactics but questioned all the accused separately. A police officer said, “They did not sustain the questioning for more than 24 hours. Sathya narrated the entire crime, and when he confided it to others, they had no choice but to confess to the crime.”Also read | Solving Crime | How a rejected proposal led to a 4-year conspiracy and a brutal acid attackLand dispute and loan settlementAccording to the police, Srinivas Achar owned 4.66 acres of land in Manthralayam. After Achar’s demise, the land was mutated in the name of Venkatesh.Seetha had also been allotted a government site in Raghavendrapuram. She mortgaged it to one man for a loan, then, without telling him, raised a Rs 7 lakh loan on the same site from Noor Ahamed, through an intermediary named Amin Basha. When Noor Ahamed found out that he was deceived, he pressed for repayment. A panchayat was held before the son of a local MLA.Story continues below this adIn the meeting, Venkatesh agreed to repay the money his sister had bought. The agreement was to repay Rs 8.5 lakh to Noor Ahmed and Rs 13.5 lakh to Amin Basha. To settle this, Venkatesh sold two acres of the family land to Noor Ahamed and others. According to the prosecution, the buyer did not pay the deducted amount.The murder motiveWhen Noor Ahamed was questioned, he agreed to sell part of that land to two other buyers, who insisted that Seetha and her sisters also sign the sale deed as witnesses, which they denied. Noor Ahamed and Besta Kumar saw Seetha as an obstacle to the sale and conspired to eliminate her so that all hurdles would end.After getting to know the motive, the police in the chargesheet mentioned how it was executed. According to the court documents, Seetha was lured by Noor Ahamed to repay her money but was asked to come to Majestic, as they would take her to Mantralayam to pay the remaining money.A day before the abduction, on March 25, 2021, Noor Ahamed arranged an Indigo car and installed a FASTag registered in the name of Gattu Inayatulla, who is his brother-in-law. On March 26, 2021, Raghu and Sathyanarayana reached Bengaluru and picked Seetha up from Majestic.Story continues below this adSeetha was under the impression that she would be taken to Mantralayam, but Raghu convinced a god-fearing Geetha that they could visit a couple of temples in Karnataka prior to it.Failed robbery before cyanide murderThen, they drove towards Kunduru Mutt near Hassan, 150 km away from Bengaluru, where Seetha bought some pooja items. At midnight, when Seetha was asleep, Raghu hit her head with a stone. However, she sustained a minor injury, and Raghu passed it off, stating they were attacked by some robbers. While Seetha was injured, on March 27, after reaching Halebeedu, Sathyanarayana and Raghu took Seetha to Hamra Clinic in Halebeedu, and medicines were bought from the drug house. Then all of them stayed at Mayura Velapuri Hotel, Beluru, after visiting a couple of temples.According to the prosecution, while at the hotel, Raghu filled an antibiotic capsule that he bought from the drug house with cyanide. The next day, after checking out of the hotel, they bought breakfast, and Raghu asked Seetha to take the capsule that the doctor had prescribed. Unaware of the contents, Seetha consumed and in the next 10 minutes she died.Inspector Sanjeev Gowda says, “The accused put her on the front seat, tied the seat belt, and started their journey towards Raichur. They have travelled about 270 km without stopping anywhere in between to the Tungabhadra high level canal at Hospet in Vijayanagar district. At an isolated place, they wrapped the dead body, tied it to a huge stone, and dumped it into the canal. As the stone is heavy, the body, which usually must surface 2 to 3 days after death, did not float in this case.”Story continues below this adBy then, Besta Kumar, using his Aadhaar card credentials, had booked a room at Uma lodge in Raichur, where Raghu and Sathyanarayana stayed and later returned to Mantralayam.While the investigations had cleared out major obstacles, Gowda says, “We had an accused confession; we knew how and why they killed Seetha. But there was the biggest challenge for us: we don’t have a dead body to prove that Seetha was dead. When it comes to legal matters, the recovery of the dead body and the post-mortem report become very crucial. On the other hand, two accused in the case, including one who was physically present while the body was dumped, had also passed away.”Under these circumstances, Sanjeev Gowda and team had only one choice: to construct the entire chain of events using scientific and technical evidence. Prior to this, Rangegowda, police sub-inspector and the assistant investigating officer in this case, was the only person who had dealt with such a case and also had ensured conviction. His experience was really helpful,” the inspector says.Gowda says, “Seetha was using two mobile phones. We first took the data of her mobile phone and those of Sathya and Raghu. Till Hospet, the mobile phones of all three were found at the same place. Later, we took CCTV visuals of the toll plazas that they had passed. Bellur Cross toll near Nelamangala, Kirisave, Shanthi Grama, and Hampi Expressway tolls were collected. We tried getting the CCTV footage, as the toll plaza video storage data were overwritten within two months.”Gold bangles crucial evidenceStory continues below this ad“Seetha was wearing some gold bangles at the time, and they were melted in Mantralayam and were turned into ingots to sell them. It also became crucial evidence. We went into the smallest details to register the evidence in the case. We took statements from the woman who sold pooja items at Kundur mutt, Dr Shahul Hameed, who treated Seetha at his clinic, staffers at lodges where Seetha stayed, and the accused stayed at Raichur lodge. We issued notices to police and fire personnel of all the limits of the entire Tungabhadra river stretch to check if they have found any dead body. But there was no response,” Sanjeev Gowda says. Subramanyanagar police inspector Sanjeev Gowda H B and public prosecutor Shailaja Nayak (Express photo/Special Arrangement)Eventually, the police filed the chargesheet in the stipulated time and Shailaja Krishna Nayak, Public Prosecutor, was appointed to appear for the prosecution.By then, Sathya and Noor Ahamed had applied for bail in the local and High Court multiple times, which were rejected. But in the last bail hearing, the Karnataka High Court directed the lower court to fast-track the case. The trial began on March 6, 2025, and ended in 17 months.Connecting the dots significantlyNarrating her experience, Shailaja Nayak says, “When I was shared the case files, I did not have any confidence, to be honest. In the court of law, there is a Latin phrase, ‘Corpus Delicti’. It means ‘body of the crime’. It is a foundational legal principle requiring that a crime must be proven to have actually occurred before anyone can be convicted of committing it. It has been around since the Colonial era. However, there have been Supreme Court rulings where, if reliable direct and/or circumstantial evidence conclusively shows the victim died and the accused killed her,” she says.Story continues below this ad“In this case, we constructed the entire chain of events without the smallest loophole and presented it before the court. We connected the dots scientifically. There were 48 witnesses, including the family members of the killers, but some turned hostile. But it did not harm the prosecution’s argument,” she says.Meanwhile, Noor Ahamed had called Seetha’s sisters and brothers from the prison, threatening them if they pursued the case. A separate case was also registered at Subramanyanagar police, and the court was also informed about it.Biggest twist from a press reporterWhen the trial began, Shailaja Nayak says that she ensured that there was no space for errors while presenting the case. The biggest twist came when Madappa, a press reporter of Mantralayam, appeared before the court and claimed that he saw Seetha on January 26, 2022, alone in the Mandal magistrate office in Mantralayam wearing a light green saree. But then, the court rejected his version when Nayak contested it, asking why Seetha would come to a government office on a public holiday, as it was Republic Day.In another instance, Gattu Inayatulla, Noor Ahamed’s brother-in-law, claimed that he saw Seetha in February 2022 when she came for darshan at Sri Guru Raghavendra mutt. He also said that she had fled from the town to avoid repaying of chit money. But his contention was also countered. Nayak said, “Gattu was appearing before the court for every hearing and was aware of the fact that his relative is jailed. He could have told the court, the police, the public or media or even to the family members. But he did not do it. His claims were also rejected.”The 61st City Civil and Sessions Court on September 26 convicted Noor Ahamed and S Sathyanarayana to life imprisonment. They were convicted on charges of criminal conspiracy, murder, destruction of evidence, and kidnapping.Judge Mallikarjuna Swamy H S in his 196-page judgement said, “In this case, by cogent and convincing evidence, the prosecution has established the following circumstances: Motive, criminal conspiracy, deceased last seen with accused 3 (Raghu) and 4 (Sathya) in Kundur mutt, Halebeedu and Beluru, discovery of place of abduction, place of incident and place of obliteration of evidence at the instance of accused 4, recovery of gold ingot converted from gold bangles of Seetha, electronic evidence, recovery of Indigo car and the remaining capsules and tablet strips found in the car.”Court observation“The circumstances relied upon by the prosecution are proved by cogent and reliable evidence. The circumstances cumulatively taken form a complete chain pointing out that the criminal conspiracy was hatched by Accused No. 1 (Besta Kumar) and 2 (Noor Ahamed), and that the abduction, murder and causing disappearance of evidence were committed by Accused No 3 and 4 pursuant to the conspiracy and none else. Before parting with the case, it is desirable for the Court to make special reference to the fact that the core evidence in this case is the evidence collected through toll collection details, customer application forms, bank account details, and call detail records, which assisted the Court in adjudicating the matter. In this context, the observation “every trial is a voyage of discovery, in which truth is the quest and technology helps to reach the truth” is aptly applicable to the case on hand,” the order stated. Sanjeev Gowda, who is currently the police inspector of West CEN police station, says that it was a peculiar case that he had come across in his 25 years of career. “We needed to make it an airtight case with the evidence. The challenge was to connect the dots and we were able to do it. Even Seetha’s family members co-operated throughout the trial, and I was cross-examined for long hours in the case. The public prosecutor took the lead during the hearing,” he says.