With the arrest of three persons on Saturday, Binnypet police say they have solved the case of murder of an astrologer on December 1.

Police arrested one Ameer along with his accomplices Armugam (28) and Annadorai (37) in connection with the murder of astrologer Madan Gopal Sharma. It was Ameer who had murdered the astrologer, while the other two had assisted him, they said. Ameer is said to have killed Sharma since he believed that Sharma had applied black-magic on his family, resulting in his mother’s death due to cancer, and his brother’s meeting with a fatal accident.

Police said that on December 1, Ameer and his accomplices, took Madan Gopal Sharma with him on the pretext of assessing the Vastu defects of a building, where they murdered him at a lonely spot. Police traced the accused based on information that Sharma was last seen with Ameer.

‘Priest’ cheats
Showing blind faith proved costly to two women at Vijayanagar who lost their gold ornaments worth Rs 90,000 on Saturday morning.

Police said Kamalamma (54), a resident of RPC Layout, and Nagarathnamma (45), a resident of Hosahalli had gone to offer prayer at Harihareshwara temple in their area. By the time they went to the temple, the priest was not there.

While searching for the priest, they saw a man performing puja. Mistaking him for a priest, they approached him for ‘special prayer’. The ‘priest’ performed puja outside the temple premises and at the end, asked the women to bundle their gold ornaments in a piece of paper to place it before the deity so that naivedya (offerings) can be given to the Lord. The women followed his instructions. He then asked them to close their eyes, and after a while, handed over the bundle of paper.

A few minutes later, when the women opened the bundle, they found that the gold ornaments were missing. They searched for the priest inside the premises but he had already fled.
 Police said, the two women lost gold ornament weighing around 50 grams and 40 grams respectively.