Suspect in teacher murder case found

Said to be her lover, he had travelled to Shirdi and Hyderabad after walking out of the hotel where she was found

The mystery surrounding the death of a school teacher is growing deeper by the day.

A resident of Lalbagh Siddapura and employee in an anganwadi in Cement Colony, M Kamala was found hanging from a hotel room, located on J C Road, last Tuesday.

Police said she had been in a relationship with her neighbour Dileep Kumar, a tailor. The two had checked into the hotel room last Tuesday. CCTV footage shows Dileep leaving the room the same day around 2.30 pm. Kamala’s husband, who had filed a missing person complaint, has accused Dileep of murdering his wife.

Dr Sanjeev M Patil, DCP, West, concedes that this is a complicated case. “Dileep Kumar has been found. We have produced him in court and will continue with the investigation. He claims he wanted to end the relationship, but he has not confessed to the murder. He is pleading innocence,” Sanjeev told Metrolife.

Police say they are waiting for the post-mortem report to understand if it was a suicide or murder. “Dileep was absconding since the day they checked into the hotel. It took us three days to trace him. He had travelled to Shirdi and then to Hyderabad before returning to Bengaluru,” explains Patil.

It is said that Dileep was running a baddi business (money lending) and investigators are looking at the financial angle too, he says.

Police see many cases of extra-marital affairs ending in murder and spouses are the usual suspects but here the needle of suspicion points to the man who was with the woman at the hotel, says Harish Pandey, DCP, South division.

‘No simple affair’

Jayna Kothari, senior advocate, suspects that there is more to the case than a simple affair. “If they were having an affair, why would they try to harm each other? There seems to be more than meets the eye,” says Jayna.

Hook-up wrong

C K Baba, DCP, North-East division, has seen some unusual cases. “A man was involved with a much older woman. He wanted to end the relationship after he got married to another woman. But the older woman wouldn’t leave him and kept visiting his house. He later murdered her,” he told Metrolife.

Given to sudden impulses

Anupama Hegde, consultant clinical psychologist, says people seek a relationship outside of their marriages for multiple reasons. They could either be unhappy emotionally or sexually. “We see cases where people who have had a history of multiple sexual partners tend to have borderline personality traits,” she says. When individuals feel suffocated or threatened in a relationship, they act on their impulses, she adds.