Hubballi: The brutal murder of a 23-year-old woman, which shook Hubballi on May 30, 2015, was committed by none other than her boyfriend who took inspiration from Kannada thriller ‘Drishya’ to create an alibi and evade arrest for more than a year, police have said.

Arun Shivalingappa Patil, 24, now pursuing PhD in agriculture, had decided to murder his girlfriend, Arpita Girimalla Biradar, as she kept pestering him to marry her. The couple had met while studying BSc (Agriculture) in Vijayapura and fallen in love. After graduation, Patil moved on and relocated to Bengaluru to pursue MSc at the University of Agricultural Sciences.

Arpita enrolled at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, and shared a hostel room with a friend. She remained committed to the relationship. She often asked Patil about their marriage. When he didn’t commit, she threatened to take up the matter with his parents. He got upset and decided to eliminate her. He devised a murder plot by taking inspiration from V Ravichandran-starrer ‘Drishya’. In the film, the protagonist creates cast-iron alibi to save his family from being prosecuted for murder.

Before departing for Hubballi, Patil left his mobile phone at his hostel room to prove his presence in Bengaluru. He also managed to mark attendance in absentia. Once in Hubballi, he called the victim by landline and asked her to meet him near Gabbur Cross on the outskirts of the city. When the victim turned up for the meeting, Patil strangled her. Police later found her body in a farm field adjacent to a service road that runs parallel to National Highway 4 near Gabbur Cross.

Cracking the case proved a challenge for the jurisdictional Kasbapeth police as the suspect didn’t use a mobile phone. But they found sufficient clues to suspect that it was a carefully planned murder. They strongly suspected Patil and went after him. But he had left behind few trails. They interrogated him. Sifting through his belongings, they stumbled upon a diary which gave away some clues about the murder.

Subjected to intense interrogation, Patil confessed to the crime, Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissioner Panduranga Rane told a press conference on Tuesday. The commissioner said the police team which solved the case would be suitably rewarded.