Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (SP)

Kundapur, Dec 27: Two colleagues of the victim, purportedly killed Basant (25), a labourer, in a house located in a deserted place, and fled from the scene, on Sunday, December 26. The murder occurred at the site earmarked for rehabilitating persons affected by railway project at Vidyanagar in Byndoor in the taluk.

Basant was hit on his head with a hoe by his murderers. The incident came to light when the contractor visited the site on Sunday. In addition to Basant, the contractor in question named Sridhar, had hired two other labourers for work. Sridhar had disbursed weekly wages to all of them on Saturday, it is learnt. Sridhar has a house in Vidyanagar. He had hired three labourers, Basant, Mithun and Banomba, from a contractor based in Kota, Udupi district. All the three had been accommodated in his vacant house by the contractor, as it was inconvenient for them to commute daily from far away Kota.

As the labourers did not report to work on Sunday, Sridhar visited the house they were stationed in. He found traces of blood on the floor of the house, blood-stained hoe, and telltale marks of a person having been dragged along the floor and buried nearby. The toes of a body were protruding from below the earth.

After a formal complaint was lodged, the policemen came, and the body was disinterred in their presence. Some locals said that the three labourers used to fight among themselves in raised voices at night, and on Saturday too, they had heard noises made by these three labourers, who spoke Bengali. The other two labourers were seen by the locals going towards the railway station on Sunday morning, it is gathered.