Accused Bhaskar Reddy
The sequence of events that transpired is one of the reasons for police to explore other angles: Wednesday night, 26-year-old Bhaskar lured Prajwal, son of realtor Manohar , into his car on the pretext of buying crackers and teaching him to drive. Bhaskar had planned to send the video to Manohar, threatening that Prajwal would be harmed unless Rs 1.5 crore was paid. Family sources told cops that after completing PU (Science) in Nellore, Bhaskar completed his BTech at Reva University in Bengaluru between 2017 and 2021. The 18-month course began in Jan 2022. After completing the course, Bhaskar did various part-time jobs before flying back to Bengaluru in Jan 2025. He earned Rs 65,000 per month.
A senior police officer said: “He was telling us that he knew the boy’s father had cash as the latter planned to buy some land and decided to kidnap the boy for ransom. We are not completely believing Bhaskar’s theory; we are probing from multiple angles. ” Police said they are also probing if any differences had cropped up, financially and friendship-wise, between Manohar’s family and Bhaskar’s family. Manohar was thriving, cops said While Bhaskar’s family was in debt. A cop said: “We have learnt that Prajwal had become very close to Bhaskar and had started teasing him over his romantic interest. But this income was meagre for him as Bhaskar’s lifestyle included alcohol, SUVs, friends and parties, police said.
His associate Edukondalu was also in the car. After taking the boy to a land parcel in Bagalur that his father planned to buy, they allegedly gagged him, tied his hands and legs with plastic wire and recorded a video of him crying. But before sending the video, the duo killed Prajwal and Bhaskar was driving towards Nellore in Andhra Pradesh to dispose of the body when he got caught after getting involved in a road accident. But the questions unanswered are: Why didn’t he make the ransom call to the father? Why did he consume alcohol when he planned to drive outside Bengaluru to dispose of the body? Why didn’t he think he would get caught when he was last seen in public with Prajwal? This apart, the cops are checking if Bhaskar had developed animosity towards Prajwal in recent times. This did not go well with Bhaskar. We have seized Bhaskar’s mobile phone and are analyzing all communications in the run up to the crime and before his arrest. The police are yet to trace Bhaskar’s associate Edukondalu, who was present during the killing, to know more about the motive. Then, he flew to London to pursue an MSc in Construction Management. For the last one and a half months, he has been working with L&T Finance Ltd in the Koramangala branch.
Since then, he has worked in different private companies for shorter periods.
Preliminary investigations pointed to the usual angle: Bhaskar’s family having been trapped in over Rs 3 crore of debt and the evil plan of raising funds by kidnapping a known and vulnerable person for a huge ransom!
“But there seems to be more than what meets the eye,” a senior police officer said and added that they were probing from two other angles along with that of ransom demand.