DK police to reopen decade-old murder case

MANGALORE: Dakshina Kannada district police has an open mind on the decade-old Shivappa Bangera murder case and will take a re-look at it, provided there is fresh leads and evidence, said SP Labhu Ram, here on Sunday. Shivappa Bangera, an employee of Mangalore University was hacked to death by unidentified miscreants in 2001 and the police in 2003 submitted C-report to court seeking permission to stop investigations.
Reacting to a demand by Shivappa Renkedaguttu, president, Dr B R Ambedkar Pratishtana, at the monthly SC/ST meeting organized by the district police to reopen the case, Ram said the district police makes earnest efforts to detect all cases and does not discriminate or underplay any case due to caste or other considerations. Shivappa had earlier suggested that police had neglected the case mainly because the victim was a member of the Dalit community.
"I have studied and reviewed the case file thoroughly," the SP said, adding that the suspects in the case underwent a polygraph (lie-detector) test as well. The then-assistant SP of Puttur and police officials submitted the C-report to the jurisdictional court to stop investigations as they did not have any substantial leads to pursue the case further, he explained. Shivappa said police are soft-pedalling on the case as it involved certain high-profile people.
When he insisted that the police speak to the widow of the victim and start fresh investigations, the SP said he would instruct Rohini Katoch, assistant SP, Puttur sub-division to do the needful. Shivappa offered to present the victim's widow before her and the police official requested him to do so at Bantwal Rural police station on August 14. "I will issue a notice to her (Shivappa's widow) to appear before me and record her statement," Rohini added.