Gory end to affair: Bengaluru college professor’s charred body in car, her lover’s in pieces on railway tracks

BENGALURU: A clandestine relationship between a divorced man and a college professor met a gruesome end last week, with bodies of both found a day apart by police — the woman's inside a car, completely charred, and the man's on railway tracks, severed into pieces.

C Ramanjinappa, 45, a resident of Marasandra near Rajanakunte, worked at the Devanahalli taluk office and was in a relationship with Saroja J, 40, a Kannada professor at a private college in Devanahalli, police said.

At 6.30am Saturday, Ramanjinappa borrowed a hatchback car from his friend, Suresh Kumar, claiming a family medical emergency. He drove to Devanahalli, where he picked up Saroja at the local bus stop around 9:30am. The duo reportedly spent the morning touring Nandi Hills and surrounding areas.

By late afternoon, they reached the secluded outskirts of Jinkebachhahalli in Doddaballapur, where the day's leisure trip took a dark turn.

According to police investigations, a violent confrontation must have occurred inside the vehicle. Ramanjinappa allegedly struck Saroja on the head with a hammer. Once she lost consciousness, he moved her body to the back seat, doused the vehicle with petrol, and set it ablaze.

Witness accounts and forensic evidence suggest that as Ramanjinappa set ablaze the car, the fire caught his own clothing, causing him burns before he fled the crime scene.

Alerted by locals who reported a car in flames and a man fleeing from it, Doddaballapur rural police, along with fire tenders, rushed to the spot and doused the fire. Then they disocered a charred body inside.

By then, the car owner received an alert on his mobile stating his vehicle had met with an accident. "The car had auto collision notification feature. Panicked, Suresh Kumar called Ramanjinappa but the mobile was switched off," a police officer said.

Identification of body

A little later, police, through the chassis number of the burnt vehicle, contacted Kumar. He reached the place and told police his friend Ramanjinappa had taken the vehicle in the morning.

"A special team led by police inspector Sadiq Pasha was formed to crack the case," a senior police officer said.

On Sunday morning, railway police contacted Pasha, saying they had found Ramanjinappa's body on railway tracks near Bidadi in Bengaluru South, completely mangled with limbs severed. As police had launched a manhunt for Ramanjinappa, an announcement had been made through all police control rooms of the state.

"An Aadhaar card found lying near the body identified the deceased as Ramanjinappa. Before that, on Saturday night, police control room had flashed a report saying a woman by the name Saroja from Devanahalli was missing. We had already collected burnt ornaments from the body inside the car. We called Saroja's husband, Jayashankar, and he recognised them as his wife's," an investigating officer said.

On Sunday afternoon, Jayashankar registered a police complaint against Ramanjinappa for killing his wife.

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