Hoax calls, an affair, nude pics and murder: Here's the Bengaluru techie case that's got India hooked

By Aravind S Kamal

Bengaluru: This crime surely would give any Bollywood murder mystery a run for its money. Love, spirituality, sex, bomb threat, and terrorism – everything was a part of Bengaluru techie MG Gokul’s well-laid plot to kill his wife, win over his married girlfriend and later cover his footprints. However, as with all such stories, the 37-year-old engineer finally ran out of luck, and is cooling his heels in  jail now.

It all began with the police arresting Gokul on Saturday for sending threat messages to the Kempe Gowda International Airport via WhatsApp. It had resulted in flights being diverted and delays in a few flights taking off.

Initially, the police viewed Gokul, who had used a SIM registered in the name of his neighbour Saju Jose to send the threat messages, as a prankster. But as they continued to interrogate him, they made a stunning discovery, something that would have been ignored had the techie not sent the threat messages.

Here’s exactly what happened, according to the Bengaluru police – Gokul was madly in love with a Christian girl, who studied engineering with him in Thrissur, Kerala, till 2007. Though he wanted to marry her, it did not materialise. Later, he moved to New Delhi and fell in love with a common friend Anuradha, who was very spiritual. He tied the knot with her in 2009 and they had a baby girl. He lost touch with the girl, who married Saju Jose, and settled down in Bengaluru.

Within a few years of marriage, Gokul developed differences with Anuradha because of his odd working hours. Anuradha allegedly had an extramarital affair and Gokul discovered it after he checked her phone. A distraught Gokul was seeking ways to tackle it and by chance, he found his original love (the girl from college) on Facebook in 2011 and got in touch with her. He made several trips to Bengaluru and was disappointed to learn that she too was married and was a mother. However, he continued to maintain contact with her and when he learnt over a period of time that her married life too was in trouble, Gokul hatched a grand plan.

He quickly informed his father-in-law (a retired senior cop) about Anuradha’s alleged affair. Then, he created an email ID (Baba), aware of the fact that his wife was an ardent devotee of Sai Baba. He started sending emails using the ‘Baba’ ID to his wife and she fell for the trap. Over a period of two months, she confided over email to ‘Baba’ that she was having an extramarital affair.

The ‘Baba’ ‘advised’ Anuradha to confess to her husband and lead a normal life. Accordingly, Anuradha confessed to her husband and Gokul forgave her. However, within months, Anuradha resumed her affair and Gokul was upset. This time, he decided to eliminate her and woo his original love.

Gokul created another fictitious email ID – ASHA (Astrology, Spirituality, Humility, Attention) and connected with Anuradha, who once again fell into the trap. Gokul, posing as ASHA (spiritual counselor), advised Anuradha that there was nothing wrong in the affair and that he would help her in rendering her husband a silent spectator. Using the fake ID (ASHA), Gokul advised Anuradha to pose in the nude with her paramour and send him the pictures so that he could offer special prayers to keep Gokul at bay. Anuradha allegedly sent her nude pictures posing with her paramour. Gokul downloaded the pictures as evidence of his wife’s extramarital affairs. He showed those pictures to his father-in-law, who now was completely on Gokul’s side.

Under the pretext of ending the affair, Gokul relocated to Bengaluru with his wife in January 2014 and took an apartment on rent in the same complex where his classmate lived with her husband. In June, using ASHA email ID, Gokul sent a set of instructions (including one to consume a lot of alcohol) to Anuradha to perform special prayers so that she is reunited with her paramour.

On 27 June this year, Anuradha allegedly got drunk and she passed out. Taking advantage of the situation, Gokul allegedly hit her several times on her forehead using an idol of Lord Ganesha and killed her. Later, he called the police and his father-in-law and informed them that she died accidently. Though the police strongly suspected foul play and wanted to interrogate Gokul, his father-in-law intervened and saved him. Gokul’s father-in-law, who had seen all the evidence of his daughter’s extra-marital affair, never suspected Gokul’s involvement.

Simultaneously, Gokul was trying to create a rift between his former classmate and her husband. Gokul shot off a letter in the name of the Bengaluru Archbishop to Saju Jose claiming that his wife was not happy with him and wanted to divorce him. He also wrote another letter to the woman posing as the Archbishop and advised her to abandon Saju Jose. In the meantime, he allegedly committed the murder and left for Anuradha’s hometown for her funeral and returned to Bengaluru in July.

After finding out that Saju Jose and his former classmate had patched up, he became angry and decided to end the matter. He bought a SIM card under a fake name (Salman) and sent a message to Saju Jose threatening him. Later, he bought another SIM card in the name of Saju Jose (by accessing identity documents). As Gokul worked with an internet service provider, it was easy for him to process the mobile phone subscription applications, according to the police. His primary aim was to depict that Saju Jose was in league with terrorists like the fictitious Salman so that his wife abandoned him. On Saturday, he sent messages to the Kempe Gowda International Airport manager claiming to have planted bombs in three flights. The police, who were alerted, traced the mobile phone number subscriber and landed at Saju Jose’s home. But when they found out that he did not have the smartphone and the signals originated from a different apartment in the same complex, they found the phone in the possession of Gokul.

It took one full day for the police to unravel the mystery. According to Bengaluru City Police Commissioner NS Megharik, Gokul hatched the plot to ensure that Saju Jose was behind the bars so that he could marry his former classmate. Additional Commissioner of Police (East) P Harisekaran confirmed that Gokul had confessed to having killed his wife and laid out the elaborate plan to trap his former classmate’s husband.

Gokul, according to the police, is trying to derail the probe by claiming that the woman he was pursuing had cooperated with him in trying to portray Saju Jose as a “terrorist”.