BENGALURU: Just before lighting the funeral pyre, he paused for one last look at his sister, who had purportedly died of a sudden heart attack. As he leaned in, he had a nagging sense something wasn’t right. There were faint blood marks on her face. “Why are there bloodstains on her face if she died after a heart attack?” he wondered.That single question unravelled a chilling crime.The woman, B Pushpavati, 52, had in fact not died of a heart attack. She had allegedly been smothered to death, and the people accused of killing her are her own daughter and son-in-law. Tumakuru district police, based on a complaint lodged by her brother S Anil Kumar, arrested the couple Friday for murder. It is suspected that greed for Rs 40 lakh drove the crime.Pushpavati, a resident of Kyatasandra in Tumakuru district, had been living alone since the death of her husband a year ago. In the early hours of Thursday, Kumar received a call informing him that she had suffered a heart attack. He rushed to her house by evening, only to notice suspicious bloodstains near her nostrils.When he questioned his niece, Suchitra Suresh, 30, she dismissed the marks as mosquito bites. But the explanation only deepened his suspicion. Refusing to allow the hurried cremation arranged by the family, he alerted the police and stopped the body from being taken away.Officers from Kyatasandra police station arrived at the spot and shifted the body for autopsy. Doctors indicated that Pushpavati had been smothered to death while asleep on the night between Feb 11 and 12. During interrogation, Suchitra and her husband, Suresh Kumar, allegedly confessed to the crime.Pushpavati had recently sold a property and deposited Rs 40 lakh in her bank account. Police suspect her daughter plotted the murder to gain control of the funds.
