Udupi, (Samajweekly) The Karnataka Police have cracked the murder of four members of a family in Udupi district and arrested 37-year-old Praveen Arun Chougale, a resident of Sangli in Maharashtra.
He worked at the Mangaluru International Airport with one of the victims, 23-year-old Afnan, and had fallen in love with her.
He confessed to killing Afnan and her mother Haseena (46), Aynaz (21) and Aseem (12) at their residence. The shocking incident was reported on November 12. Haseena’s husband works in Dubai.
Udupi SP, Dr Arun told the media on Wednesday that Praveen Arun Chaugale had confessed to having committed the four murders.
The spurned lover has told police that friendship, love for Afnan and money matters led him to commit the dastardly crime.
“His intention was to kill Afnan. The accused had claimed that he carried out the other three murders to escape and erase evidence,” he stated.
Police sources said that Praveen Arun Chaugale was married and had children but he fell in love with his co-worker Afnan. Both had money transactions. The matter reached their families and both fought. Praveen’s wife had also fought with Afnan and her family.
After this incident Afnan stopped all communication with Praveen. Unable to bear this, the accused decided to kill her.
He told police that he had killed the others when they tried to stop him from killing Afnan, police sources said.
Praveen was subjected to intense grilling by the police and five special teams formed to crack the murder case had gathered information that the accused had taken an auto and got off near the residence of the victims. Later, the teams found that Praveen was hiding at a relative’s house in Kudachi in Belagavi district.
He had also assaulted Haseena’s mother-in-law and threatened a young girl in the neighbourhood, who had tried to raise an alarm and had come forward to help. He had forced her to run away.
