Solving Crime: How 48 injuries and a bike named ‘Chinnu’ exposed a shocking crime in Karnataka

February 16, 2016. For a small utensil shop owner in Sringeri, it seemed like any other day. His 18-year-old daughter, a first-year BCom student and his only child, had an internal exam at college. As always, he dropped her off before heading to work. Their routine was simple: after class, she would either return home for lunch or spend the afternoon at his shop before accompanying him home in the evening. But that day, she never returned.

When the shop owner came home for lunch, his wife told him their daughter had not arrived. Initially, the family assumed she might have stopped at a friend’s house. Calls were made to classmates and relatives. One of her friends told the family that she had walked with her after the exam before the two separated and went their own ways.

As hours passed, concern turned into panic.

The father alerted the Sringeri police. Officers advised him to file a missing persons complaint. What nobody knew then was that the disappearance of the college student from a family surviving on barely Rs 100 a day would soon become one of the most disturbing crimes the region had witnessed.

Later that evening, attention shifted to an abandoned well located about 600 metres from a bus stand. Inside lay the body of a young woman, her college bag still strapped to her. Fire and emergency personnel were called to retrieve the body.

It was the 18-year-old.

Crime scene raises doubts

At first glance, the circumstances appeared confusing. Mud covered much of her body, and there were no immediately visible external injuries. Bloodstains on her clothes led some villagers to speculate that she had died by suicide. Family members pointed to her menstrual health issues, while others suggested she may have been distressed over her examination.

However, the scene raised doubts for Sudhir Hegde, the then inspector and investigating officer at Sringeri police station, and now a deputy superintendent of police with the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission.

“The well did not contain enough water for drowning. Her college bag was intact. Several aspects of the scene did not fit the theory of suicide. For an investigating officer, even a small doubt cannot be ignored,” Hegde recalled.

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The police ensured that an Unnatural Death Report was immediately registered and that the body was sent for a detailed forensic examination. That decision would ultimately change the course of the investigation.

DySP Sudhir Hegde, then the investigating officer on the case, noticed that the well did not contain enough water for the student to drown.

The forensic evidence that exposed a hidden crime

The next 24 hours proved crucial in determining what investigators were dealing with. As rumours of suicide spread through the village, the father informed police that her earrings and nose stud were missing. This prompted investigators to also consider the possibility of robbery, and a case of murder and robbery was registered while police awaited the findings of the post-mortem examination.

The body was sent to Mangaluru, where forensic expert Dr Haneil D’Souza, Associate Professor and District Medico-Legal Consultant, conducted the autopsy. The findings dramatically altered the course of the investigation.

Although the body showed few obvious signs of violence when it was recovered from the well, the post-mortem documented 48 injuries. Dr D’Souza carefully preserved crucial forensic exhibits, including scalp hair, pubic hair, fingernail clippings and fibre material recovered from the pubic region, for scientific examination.

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The autopsy established that the 18-year-old had been sexually assaulted before being strangulated and smothered to death. It further revealed that the abandoned well was not the scene of the crime but a location used to dispose of the body and conceal the offence.

For investigators, the significance of the post-mortem extended far beyond determining the cause of death. It exposed a violent crime that had not been immediately apparent at the scene and provided the first scientific roadmap for the investigation.

The challenge, however, was formidable. There were no eyewitnesses, no CCTV cameras, and no direct evidence identifying the perpetrators.

How the accused were tracked

The crime occurred in a remote area between the jurisdictions of the Sringeri and Jayapura police stations. With no surveillance footage available, investigators relied almost entirely on fieldwork.

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Police teams began speaking to students, teachers, shopkeepers, labourers and residents across neighbouring villages. During this exercise, investigators started hearing about earlier incidents involving women that had either gone unreported or received little attention.

According to Hegde, investigators later discovered that the accused had allegedly been involved in at least two previous sexual assaults and one attempted assault in the months preceding the murder. None of the victims had formally pursued complaints because of social stigma and fear.

“This is why reporting offences is important. When incidents remain unreported, offenders begin to believe they can continue without consequences,” Hegde said.

One of the most significant breakthroughs came from a schoolteacher who had narrowly escaped an earlier attack. Although she had reported the incident, it had occurred outside the jurisdiction of the local police. After investigators circulated information to neighbouring stations, details of the case surfaced from the Jayapura police limits.

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The teacher told investigators that two men had attempted to drag her into a forested area while she was waiting at a bus stand. She escaped only because a relative arrived unexpectedly.

Santhosh R and Pradeep M were arrested on charges of gang rape, murder, theft, and destruction of evidence.

Another lead emerged from a student who had survived a similar encounter. The descriptions provided independently by both women closely matched. More importantly, the teacher remembered a distinctive detail about the motorcycle used by the suspects. The word “Chinnu” was written above the registration plate.

Recognising the value of the clue, Hegde personally visited the Regional Transport Office and began tracing motorcycles matching that description. The exercise gradually narrowed the field and brought investigators closer to the suspects.

A second breakthrough came from a local farmer who had met the two men shortly after the crime. He remembered noticing injuries on one of the accused’s faces and found the explanation offered for those injuries suspicious.

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To investigators, those injuries were potentially significant because they supported the possibility that the victim had fought back.

Armed with these leads, the police moved quickly.

2 accused arrested

One of the two accused, Santhosh R, was arrested on February 17, less than 24 hours after the crime. During interrogation, he allegedly confessed to the crime. Investigators recovered the victim’s earrings and nose stud. Rather than relying solely on the recovery, police independently corroborated the evidence by collecting photographs showing the victim wearing the same ornaments before her death.

“I did not want to leave any room for the defence to challenge the investigation. Every recovery had to be independently established and scientifically supported,” Hegde said.

The search for Pradeep M, another accused, proved more dramatic. When officers located him, he fled. Police personnel chased him across nearly 12 kilometres of rural terrain. At one stage, he boarded a bus and appeared close to escaping.

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The police alerted bus stands across the region and deployed personnel to monitor passengers and vehicles. Realising that arrest was becoming inevitable, Pradeep allegedly tried to die by suicide.

Investigators rushed him to get medical treatment and ensured he survived. After recovering, he was formally arrested on February 23.

Reconstruction of the crime

With both accused in custody, investigators turned to the most critical phase of the case—scientifically reconstructing the crime and establishing an unbroken chain of evidence. The biological samples preserved during the autopsy were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory along with blood samples collected from the accused.

According to forensic reports produced before the court, pubic hair recovered from the victim matched the DNA profile of the first accused, Pradeep. Investigators also found biological material belonging to the second accused, Santhosh, beneath the victim’s fingernails, indicating that she had resisted her attackers and physically struggled during the assault.

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The scientific evidence was further reinforced by medical examinations conducted by Dr Eldose T Varghese. Injuries were documented on the bodies of both accused, including injuries to their private parts. The doctor opined that the injuries were consistent with violent sexual activity and supported the prosecution’s version of events.

Together, the forensic findings enabled investigators to reconstruct what had happened.

The police concluded that the 18-year-old was intercepted while returning home after her exam by Pradeep, 28, and Santhosh, 20, both daily-wage labourers from the region. The men were known to the victim and had previously worked for her family.

According to the police, the accused dragged her to a secluded location near the abandoned well. Pradeep sexually assaulted her. The evidence indicated that by the time Santhosh attempted to sexually assault her, she was already dead.

The forensic findings established that she had been strangled and smothered. Investigators concluded that the motive for the killing was to eliminate the only witness capable of identifying her attackers. The accused then disposed of the body in the well in an attempt to conceal the crime and divert suspicion.

For investigators, the case became a striking example of how forensic science could reveal details invisible at a crime scene

Building a ‘no lapses’ case

The prosecution still had to establish a complete chain of circumstances linking the accused to the crime.

Over the following months, investigators assembled a case built on forensic evidence, DNA analysis, witness testimony, recoveries and circumstantial links. The final chargesheet relied on 38 witnesses, 17 material objects, and 53 documentary exhibits.

Among the evidence presented were forensic reports, DNA findings, medical testimony, witness accounts, recovery of stolen jewellery, and other circumstantial material.

Investigators also collected the victim’s internal examination records. “We found that she had scored 92 marks in the examination she wrote that day. That helped rule out any theory that she had taken her own life because the exam had gone badly,” Hegde said.

Piece by piece, investigators constructed a case designed to withstand judicial scrutiny.

The prosecution argued that no single item of evidence stood alone. Instead, each component reinforced the others. Witness statements pointed investigators towards the suspects. Recoveries connected them to the victim. Medical evidence established sexual assault and homicide. DNA evidence physically linked the accused to the crime. Injuries on the accused supported the theory that the victim had resisted.

Viewed together, prosecutors argued, the evidence formed an unbroken chain that left little room for any alternative explanation.

Conviction and death sentence

On January 3, 2020, Principal District and Sessions Judge Umesh M Adiga of the Chikkamagaluru Sessions Court convicted Pradeep M and Santhosh R for gang rape, murder, theft, and destruction of evidence.

The court held that the prosecution had successfully established a complete chain of circumstantial, medical, and scientific evidence linking both accused to the crime, adding that the investigation had no lapses.

In its judgment, the court described the offence as exceptionally brutal. It also observed that the victim, who had attended her college examination that day, had her “colourful dreams” destroyed by the actions of the accused.

The judgment noted that she was sexually assaulted, strangulated, and smothered before her body was thrown into an abandoned well in an attempt to conceal the crime. “The acts of accused was brutal, shocking, heinous, grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner,” the court observed.

The court further stated that the crime had not only devastated the victim’s family but had also generated fear among women and girls travelling through isolated areas.

Finding that the possibility of reformation appeared remote and treating the case as falling within the ‘rarest of rare’ category, the sessions court sentenced both accused to death for murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. They were also sentenced to 25 years of rigorous imprisonment for gang rape, along with separate sentences for theft and destruction of evidence.

As required by law, the death sentence was referred to the Karnataka High Court for confirmation. However, it has remained pending for the past six years.

For Hegde, however, the significance of the case lies beyond the sentence. Had investigators accepted the assumptions that emerged on the day the body was found, the truth may never have surfaced.