Solving Crime: How a cricket tournament helped Karnataka Police crack a 13-year-old murder case

The police registered a missing complaint and learnt that Shetty was also missing for two days.

It was then that the police in Honnavar in the neighbouring Uttara Kannada district were informed about an unidentified dead body. The only piece of evidence to identify the body was a cloth tag on the shirt’s collar that read ‘Sindu Puttur 21376’. The Puttur police rushed to the Honnavar government hospital mortuary where the body was kept and Mallika identified it as her husband’s.

Investigation begins, peters out

When the police contacted Shetty’s wife, she said that on June 7, he had told her that one of his friends had arrived from Kuwait and that he would be going to Mangaluru with Vishwanath Rai. The police managed to locate Shetty’s car, which was parked near Kadri Park in Mangaluru, but there was no sign of Shetty.

The subsequent police investigation revealed that on the day of the murder, Rai and Shetty allegedly argued over a financial matter. The police learnt that Shetty had brought two bottles of beer and that he had purchased these from a wine shop at Uppinangady. The police also found out that another employee of Rai’s firm, Subash Chandra, was with Shetty and Rai at the latter’s residence – Rai owned several homes.

After he was taken into custody, Chandra allegedly revealed that Shetty murdered Rai with an iron rod and took the body away in his car.

The police sent several teams to various parts of the coastal district, including the houses of Shetty’s friends and relatives, but he could not be traced. The police also tracked Shetty’s phone but failed to get any clues.

The cricket tournament that ended Shetty’s run

Over the next few years, inspectors at the Puttur police station changed and the Vishwanath Rai murder case lay forgotten. In September 2012, Police Inspector Suresh Kumar P was transferred to the police station.

Subsequently, S D Sharanappa, then Udupi superintendent of police, asked his staff to look into the unsolved crimes in their police station. For Kumar, this was the Vishwanath Rai murder case.

“The investigation, collection of evidence, statement and other formalities were done properly by the officer when the incident had taken place. But what was suspicious was that Shetty’s wife and son continued to live in Kodimbady village in Puttur taluk and never tried to contact the police to know whether he was arrested or traced. This was a tipping point for me,” says Kumar, who is the Lokayukta police inspector in the Dakshina Kannada district now.

“I deputed a couple of young constables who hailed from Puttur region to track his wife and son. We found that his wife was working in the court canteen and we tracked her mobile phone but there was no lead. The other person left was her son,” he says.

Shetty’s son who was around 18-20 years old by then was a known cricket player in Puttur taluk and used to play in local cricket tournaments. This piece of information was obtained by a police constable who was deputed to track Shetty’s family.

“It was our good fortune that the police constable also played cricket and knew Shetty’s son. We came to know that his son was using two mobile phones but shared only one number. In one of the cricket tournaments where Shetty’s son played, the police constable managed to get the other number. After scanning the call detail record (CDR), we found something very unusual. That number was getting calls once every two or three months. Shetty’s wife also got calls from the same number and they spoke for more than 20-30 minutes. This mobile number became the subject of our interest,” says Kumar.

When the police traced the number, they found that it was active in the Erode region of Tamil Nadu, which houses the densely populated Sathyamangalam forest that was once infamous for serving as forest brigand Veerappan’s hideout. “We also found that the number, once in a while, was active in Chamarajanagar, a Karnataka district bordering Tamil Nadu,” recalls Kumar.

Two plainclothes police officials visited the area with Shetty’s photo. When they asked locals about Shetty, they learnt that Shetty went by ‘Raj’ and was even running a finance company there, Raj Finance.

After more than six months of investigation, in August 2014, more than 13 years after Vishwanath Rai was murdered, the police announced the arrest of Vishwanath Shetty.

Tying up loose ends and a conviction

Police Inspector Suresh Kumar recalls that they asked Shetty how he managed to remain untraceable for all these years. “After killing Rai and dumping his body, Shetty abandoned his car and went to Palakkad in Kerala. He worked in a farmhouse belonging to a Coimbatore-based doctor. Impressed by his skills, the doctor took him to Coimbatore and then to Erode, where the doctor owned a farmhouse. Shetty as Raj managed to establish himself as a financier and set up a finance firm. Once in a while, he met his wife. She used to go to Chamarajanagar and they would stay together in some lodge or hotel for two or three days and return,” he says.

During the investigation, the police also found that Shetty’s wife had played a crucial role in his 13-year run. “As she worked in the court canteen, our police constables visiting the court would discuss the investigation…she was passing the message. Also, she learnt how to face the law…It helped Shetty escape,” Kumar adds.

After his arrest, Shetty stepped out on bail on October 1, 2015, and returned to his hometown.

On December 13, 2021, Judge Rudolph Pereira, the fifth additional district and sessions judge of Dakshina Kannada, sentenced Shetty to life imprisonment. Shetty was 45 years old then. Judge Pereira said in his order: “The very nature and attitude of the accused person in absconding from the scene of occurrence of the incident and thereafter hiding himself for about 13 years in the neighbouring state by changing his name would demonstrate that he has committed the alleged offences and it strengthens the allegations of the sole eyewitness of PW.6 (Subhash Chandra).”