Heggade not involved in Sowjanya Murder Case’-CBI
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has confirmed that Dharmasthala Heggade and family have not been involved in the murder of 17-year-old PUC student of SDM-Ujire, Sowjanya that took place on October 9, 2012
Mangaluru: Nearly four years after the mysterious murder of 17-year-old PUC student of Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College-Ujire, Sowjanya-the CBI which was investigating the rape and murder of this young girl have given a clean chit on the Dharmasthala Veerendra Heggade family’s alleged involvement in the crime. The CBI report says that Veerendra Heggade and his family did not play any role in the murder of Sowjanya, and the report will be submitted soon.
Recalling the incident, Sowjanya, a 17-year-old Pre-University Course student of SDM College, Ujjire was raped and killed on her way back home from college on October 9, 2012. The Belthangady police had then arrested one Santosh Rao in connection with the case. However, the local people and the victim’s family alleged that four youth from Dharmasthala, including Nischal Jain, son of Harshendra Kumar, the younger brother of Veerendra Heggade, was involved in the case. Three others against whom allegations were leveled were Dheeraj Kella, Uday Jain and Mallik Jain.
Prior to the case being handed over to the CBI on 6 November 2013, CID had interrogated Kella-Jain trio. Harshendra Kumar had appeared before the CID and presented records, including passport, visa and bank transactions of his son (Nischal Jain) in the United States of America, to show that he was not in the country when the rape and murder was committed. CID officials then found merit in the evidence and given a clean chit to Nischal. Later the case was handed over to CBI, and nearly 4 years after the murder the CBI in its report has confirmed that there is absolutely no evidence to prove that the family of Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade is involved in the rape and murder in any way. This would be a sigh of relief for the Heggade family.
