In swift action Bengaluru Police on Thursday solved the murder of IBM techie Kusuma Rani Singla by arresting a man from Haryana.
The police managed to track the accused, Sukhbir Singh, a Delhi-based techie, near Gurgaon through his Facebook posts and cellphone records. “Within 24 hours, we cracked the case and arrested the accused. He has been brought to Bengaluru for further investigation,” police said.
Kusuma, 31, was found dead in her south-east Bengaluru apartment on Tuesday evening. She had been strangled with the cord of a laptop charger. The murder came to light when her roommate Nidhi returned home from work around 7.30 pm on Tuesday. Nidhi found Kusuma’s body on the floor with blood flowing from the nose and mouth.
The victim who belonged to Punjab and began her career with IBM in Noida, shifted to the IBM’s Whitefield office, 30 km from Bengaluru, six months ago. She had taken an apartment on the fourth floor of Mahaveer Kings Place in Belathur, which she shared with her friend Nidhi Sharma.
Sukhbir became friends with Kusuma on the social networking site Facebook, about three months ago. It was Sukhbir who had sent a friend request on Facebook to Kusuma and she had accepted it.
According to police sources Kusuma invited Sukhbir home on Tuesday where they had an altercation over money. Sukhbir asked her for Rs 50,000, and strangled Kusuma when she refused to oblige him.
“It is not clear yet whether Sukhbir wanted to borrow the money or was attempting extortion. Things will become clear after we question Sukhbir,” police said.