9 yrs later, life term to gym trainer for techie's murder

Nine years after the brutal murder of 29-year-old Information Technology professional Payal Surekha here, a Special CBI court has awarded life sentence to gym instructor James Kumar Ray and imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on him.

Sureka was found murdered in her apartment in J.P. Nagar area with multiple stab injuries to her body on December 17, 2010. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Bengaluru Police had filed a chargesheet before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM), Bengaluru against the accused Ray.

The CBI took over the probe after the Supreme Court orders as the family members of Surekha suspected that her husband Anantha Narayana Mishra was behind the murder.

During the CBI probe, it was revealed that Surekha married Mishra in 2008. Her husband ran a gymnasium in Bengaluru where Ray and one of his friends worked as a trainer. In 2009, Mishra opened another gym in Odisha's Cuttack in partnership with another friend.

In absence of partners of the gym in Cuttack, Ray, who worked as a trainer at the gym allegedly started posing himself as the owner of the gym, and also misappropriated funds of the gym.

"The same was brought to the knowledge of Mishra by his father and subsequently, Ray was removed as trainer and another trainer was appointed," the CBI said.

The sudden change affected the financial position as well as the social status enjoyed by Ray and in revenge, he killed Sureka. As part of the probe, the CBI had found that the DNA collected from hair strands at the crime scene matched with those of the accused. The special CBI court maintained that Roy was the only culprit, and Mishra had no role in the murder.

( With inputs from IANS )