Lawyer, wife kill client over money dispute, stuff body in bag packed with cement
Raipur, Jun 25 (PTI): A lawyer and his wife have been arrested here for allegedly killing a 58-year-old man over a monetary dispute, and dumping the body after stuffing it in a bag filled with wet cement, police said on Wednesday.
Lawyer Ankit Upadhyay (31) and his wife Shivani Sharma (24) allegedly conspired to kill Kishore Paikara, Upadhyay's client. Paikara had been demanding that Upadhyay return Rs 30 lakh borrowed from him, Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Lal Umed Singh told reporters.
Vinay Yadu (23) and Suryakant Yadu (21) were also arrested for allegedly helping the couple dispose of the body, he said.
Paikara was killed at a rented house in Indraprastha Colony on the morning of June 21, said Singh.
The body was discovered on the morning of June 23 after some passersby reported foul smell emanating from a big trunk left on the roadside near Diprapara drain in the same area. Police found a red trolley bag inside.
The victim, his legs tied and the throat slit, was encased in cement inside the trolley bag.
Five teams of the Anti-Crime and Cyber Unit and D D Nagar Police Station were formed to probe the case, SSP Singh said.
CCTV footage showed that three men and a woman had transported the trunk in the boot of a car from Indraprastha Colony.
The accused had fitted the car with a fake number plate, but the police still identified its owner who said he had sold it to Ankit Upadhyay, a resident of Satyam Vihar Raipura.
The police also found that the trunk had been purchased from Gole Bazar area and payment made online through Shivani Sharma's account. It had been transported to a house in Indraprastha Colony in an e-rickshaw.
The house owner told police that Upadhyay and his wife had rented it only a week ago.
The couple, in the meantime, fled to Delhi by a flight on the night of June 23. Raipur police immediately alerted their Delhi counterparts, and the two were taken into custody at the airport after they landed in the national capital.
Upadhyay told police that apart from being a lawyer, he sells and purchases land, and had helped Paikara sell his house in Bajrang Nagar here for Rs 30 lakh.
He had then borrowed the amount from Paikara for some personal work. The victim was demanding it back, which allegedly led to the conspiracy to murder him.
Upadhyay allegedly bought a second-hand car using a fake Aadhaar card which he himself had fabricated, and rented a house in Indraprastha Colony. On June 21, Upadhyay drove Paikara, who could not walk, in his car to the rented house where the couple allegedly murdered him by slitting his throat with a knife, SSP Singh said.
After disposing of the body on June 23, they fled to Delhi the same night.
The Alto car used in the crime, two two-wheelers, and five mobile phones have been seized from the possession of the accused, Singh said, adding that further probe was on.
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Karnataka MLA Vinay Kulkarni disqualified after conviction in Goudar murder case
Bengaluru (PTI): The Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Saturday issued an official notification regarding the disqualification of Congress MLA Vinay Kulkarni following his conviction in the murder case of BJP leader Yogeshgouda Goudar.
The former minister is currently in prison, serving life imprisonment in the case.
“Consequent upon the conviction of Vinay Kulkarni, Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly representing the Dharwad constituency, by the LXXXI Additional City Civil & Sessions Judge, Bengaluru City (CCH-82), in Spl CC No. 565/2021, he stands disqualified from the membership of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from the date of conviction, i.e, April 15, 2026,” the notification read.
“He stands disqualified in terms of the provisions of Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution of India, read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and such disqualification shall continue for a further period of six years after his release, unless the conviction is stayed by a competent court,” it added.
Hence, one seat in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly has fallen vacant, the notification said.
Bypolls were held on April 9 to fill two other seats in the 224-member Assembly that fell vacant due to the death of sitting MLAs. The results will be declared on May 4.
On April 15, Judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat convicted Kulkarni and others under various IPC sections, including criminal conspiracy and murder. Subsequently, on April 17, the court sentenced Kulkarni and 15 others convicted in the case to life imprisonment.
The case pertains to the killing of Goudar, a BJP Zilla Panchayat member, in Dharwad on June 15, 2016. Kulkarni was a minister at that time. Hired assailants attacked and hacked Goudar to death in his gym at Saptapur in Dharwad.
Following demands from Goudar’s family and others, the then-BJP government transferred the case to the CBI in 2019.
The CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet in 2020, naming Vinay Kulkarni as the “main conspirator.” It alleged that he perceived Yogeshgouda Goudar as a growing political rival in Dharwad and hired contract killers to eliminate him.
Kulkarni was arrested by the CBI in 2020. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court in August 2021 under certain conditions, including a ban on entering Dharwad district. However, in June 2025, the apex court cancelled his bail following allegations of witness tampering and attempts to influence prosecution witnesses.
Kulkarni again sought bail in January 2026, but the High Court rejected it, citing judicial propriety.
However, the Supreme Court granted him bail on February 27 after noting that all witnesses had been examined.
