Dumped in Mysuru – Star of Mysore

By M.B. Pavan Murthy

Mysuru: Mysuru city outskirts are fast earning a chilling reputation as dumping grounds for bodies of murder victims — often mutilated or burned beyond recognition in a deliberate attempt to erase evidence.

In the latest discovery, the Police recovered a severed head and a left forearm belonging to an unidentified male in a secluded field near K. Hemmanahalli village in Jayapura hobli. The Jayapura Police have registered a case and launched an investigation.

Early suspicions indicate that the victim was murdered elsewhere and the dismembered remains were brought to the remote site to avoid detection.

This is not an isolated incident. Over the past three years, Mysuru and its surrounding taluks have seen five to six eerily similar cases, only two of which have been solved. In the others, victims remain unidentified and perpetrators continue to elude justice.

Pattern of brutality

A disturbing pattern is emerging. Victims are often murdered outside Mysuru — sometimes in distant cities — and their bodies are transported to the outskirts where they are dumped, mutilated or partially burnt using petrol to obliterate facial features and fingerprints. This gruesome tactic severely hampers Police efforts to establish identity, trace the crime or secure leads.

Since 2023, cases have been reported across Jayapura, Yelwal and K.R. Nagar, yet with little success in identifying victims. The anonymity of the dead benefits the killers, allowing them to vanish without leaving a trail.

In many cases, no relatives have come forward, prompting the unsettling question: Are families unaware or is there a more sinister reason why no one is reporting these people missing?

Unsolved cases raise alarm

On May 4, 2023, a half-burnt body was discovered near Yelwal along the Mysuru-Hunsur Highway. Police suspect the body was deliberately torched to destroy evidence, but the case remains unsolved.

In a chilling sequence of events on Dec. 20 and 21, 2023, two unidentified bodies were found on consecutive days — one floating in the Cauvery backwaters near Moolepetlu, and another in the Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) Dam backwaters.

Both victims had been packed in sacks or bags before being dumped and their identities remain unknown.

A breakthrough came on July 9, 2024, when the murder of Anand (44), a resident of Bengaluru, was solved. Anand had been strangled and dumped from the Sagarakatte Bridge into the KRS backwaters. His family had filed a missing person report at the Banashankari Police Station, which helped investigators crack the case and arrest three suspects involved in a financial dispute with the victim.

In a more recent incident at Gumachanahalli near Jayapura, a partially burned male body was identified as Mohan Kumar from Byadarapura in Chamarajanagar taluk.

Employed as a manager at a lodge near Bogadi, he was allegedly killed by gamblers who frequented the premises. Believing he had stolen a gold chain, the suspects murdered him, poured petrol over his body and set it ablaze.

Police now believe that multiple recent discoveries of unidentified bodies — in lakes, fields, and forest patches — may be part of a larger trend. The bodies are being deliberately disposed of in Mysuru’s peripheries to delay identification and derail investigations.

In the most recent case at K. Hemmanahalli, Police suspect the same modus operandi: The victim was likely murdered elsewhere, dismembered and disposed of in pieces.