Girish’s father Venkatesh filed a complaint with the Viveknagar police the same day.
Published: 01st March 2020 07:04 AM | Last Updated: 01st March 2020 07:04 AM | A+A A-
File photo of Shubha and her fiance Girish.
BENGALURU: Just three days after their engagement, 27-year-old software engineer BV Girish was elated. He and his fiancee Shubha Shankaranarayan, a 21-year-old law student, were going for out for dinner to a posh restaurant. Afterwards, they headed home on his scooter but stopped at the Air View Point on Ring Road as Shubha wanted to watch planes landing at HAL Airport. As they stood watching at around 9.30 pm, Girish sustained a fatal blow on the left side of his head and collapsed. Shubha stopped a car and took Girish to Manipal Hospital. At 8.05 am the next day, doctors declared him dead.
Girish’s father Venkatesh filed a complaint with the Viveknagar police the same day. Investigating officer KA Nanaiah recorded Shubha’s statement, but no clues were available for several days. But Nanaiah, who went through videos of the engagement ceremony held on November 30, 2003, found Shubha’s behaviour unusual. Police were not accustomed to analysing mobile phone call details report (CDR) in those days. But Nanaiah decided to verify call details of Shubha’s mobile phone, which eventually cracked the case.
Shubha’s CDR revealed she was in constant touch with Arun Varma (19), two years her junior in BMS College of Law and Varma’s presence near the scene of crime was established through his mobile phone.
Police picked up Varma, then a first-semester student, for interrogation. But Varma cooked up a story saying he was not in Bengaluru when the incident took place. Although the police did not buy it, he was let off. After he left the police station, he placed a call to Shubha – which the police tracked – and told her about the inquiry. Police built their case further and arrested Shubha, her boyfriend Varma, his cousin Dinesh alias Dinakaran, and the latter’s friend A Venkatesha, who actually dealt the fatal blow on Girish’s head.
They were arrested on January 25, 2004, over 50 days after the murder. The fact that Shubha had orchestrated the murder of her innocent fiance to continue her relationship with Varma sent shock waves across India. Girish was working with a well-known MNC and his family was devastated by his death.
Investigation revealed that Shubha had confided with her beautician that she did not like Girish’s simpler lifestyle and wished he would die so she could be with Varma. She told this to her beautician thrice, including on the day of her engagement, and said she would anyway elope with Varma one day even after the engagement.
She had openly told two of her friends that she did not like Girish, but neither thought Shubha would go to the extent of planning a murder. Shubha and Varma plotted to murder Girish. Her phone analysis showed Shubha messaged every little detail about their movements to Varma after their dinner. When she messaged they were at the view-point, Varma brought Venkatesha on a bike and the latter hit Girish on the head with a two-wheeler’s shock absorber. They dumped the weapon into bushes in a military area nearby where the police later found it.
It was one of the early cases in which the court admitted technical evidence of the exchange of phone calls and SMSs among the four before and after the murder. They found 73 calls exchanged among them on the day of the incident. In May 2010, a Fast Track Court convicted all four of murder, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Shubha was also convicted of destruction of evidence. The Karnataka High Court upheld the order in July, 2010. Currently, Shubha is out on bail, which Supreme Court granted her in August 2014.
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