Mangalore, April 22: The Suratkal police have arrested three accused in the case of murder of an elderly woman Sumathi Prabhu at her residence at Kulai in February.
The arrested are identified as Shivaram (20) and Bahaddur Singh (22), hailing from Rajasthan and Shahanawaz (20) of Uttar Pradesh. Arrested Shivaram was said to be the ex-tenant of Sumathi Prabhu around seven years ago.
It is learnt that Sumathi Prabhu (65) was living alone in her house at Kulai, after the death of her husband Damodhar Prabhu two years ago. Sumathi who had a craze of wearing gold ornaments all the time was well known by her ex-tenant, who had latter planned to loot the gold and murder the woman with the help two of his friends working in a saloon.
The accused, who entered the house on the pretext of giving her advance for another rented house, had slit the throat of woman with the kitchen knife, while watching TV and fled to Rajasthan with 28 sovereigns of gold worth Rs 3.8 lakh looted from the house.
Mangalore Police Commissioner R Hithendra said that special squad was formed to nab the culprits and the accused have said to be sold some of the looted jewellery in Rajasthan and brought the rest to Mangalore to sell.
The officials also seized some of the looted gold from the accused.
Previously, the locals had also staged protests twice demanding arrests of culprits.
