It was an older sister’s quest for answers that undid what is suspected to be a neatly laid plan six months after her sibling’s death.
On April 24, an unresponsive Kruthika M Reddy, 29, a dermatologist, was wheeled into Bengaluru’s Cauvery Hospital, where she was declared dead.
While the family and doctors assumed that Kruthika had died of natural causes — she was being treated for gastritis by her surgeon husband Mahendra Reddy G S, 31, from April 21 onwards — Nikitha M Reddy, a radiologist, wanted answers.
In fact, Nikitha’s insistence on knowing the exact cause of her sister’s death forced the hospital to send a Medico Legal Case (MLC) report to the Marathahalli police station, which registered a case related to unnatural death under the relevant sections.
Six months on, Nikitha’s hunch paid off. According to the post-mortem report by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), received by the Marathahalli police recently, traces of Propofol were found in Kruthika’s organs and the medical equipment used by her husband to administer the medication intravenously between April 21 and April 23. An arranged match, the couple had tied the knot on May 26, 2024.
According to the police, Mahendra, who worked at a city hospital earlier, is suspected of administering a high dose of Propofol, a controlled anaesthetic that can legally be used only in surgeries at hospitals, to kill Kruthika.
He was arrested from Udupi district’s Manipal, nearly 400 km from Bengaluru, where he was away for work. “Mahendra was unaware that we had received the FSL report and that he was on our radar,” said a police officer, adding that the motive behind the murder was yet to be determined.
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On Wednesday, Mahendra was produced before a Magistrate, who remanded him to police custody for nine days.
K Parashurama, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Whitefield Division, told The Indian Express, “All the medical equipment used by Mahendra for Kruthika’s treatment at her parent’s house was seized following her death. Initially, it seemed as though Kruthika had died of natural causes. However, the post-mortem report points to traces of Propofol in the equipment and in Kruthika’s organs.”
Mohan Reddy T S, an engineer who is married to Nikitha, said the family had spent nearly Rs 2 crore on Mahendra and Kruthika’s May 2024 wedding. While Mahendra’s father owns rental properties in Gunjur and Marathahalli in eastern Bengaluru, Kruthika’s father is a retired electrical engineer.
According to the police, Kruthika, who lived with Mahendra in the city’s Ayyappa Layout after the wedding, complained of gastritis on April 21. To speed up her recovery, she decided to stay with her parents, who live nearby. The police said Mahendra started treating her condition intravenously before leaving for their Ayyappa Layout house.
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Around noon on April 23, the police said Kruthika sent him a WhatsApp message stating that the cannula was causing her discomfort and asking if she could stop the IV treatment. Not only did Mahendra instruct her not to remove the cannula, he also returned to her parents house that day to continue her treatment.
Her brother-in-law Mohan said, “After treating Kruthika on April 23, Mahendra went off to sleep in another room at her parent’s house. The next morning, Kruthika was found unresponsive. Her parents and Mahendra took her to a hospital, where she was declared dead. Not only did Mahendra insist that a post-mortem was unnecessary, he also wanted to cremate her body in his hometown (in Andhra Pradesh). However, my wife refused to allow the cremation without a post-mortem.”
Though the police are yet to determine the motive, Kruthika’s family claimed that Mahendra had murdered her either for money or over an affair.
“In October 2024, Mahendra had sought financial help from Kruthika’s family to set up a hospital in Bengaluru. My in-laws suggested that he gain some more work experience since constructing a hospital would cost several crores. He seemed unhappy about it,” Mohan claimed, adding that Kruthika’s dermatology clinic was scheduled to be opened in Bengaluru on May 4.
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Besides accusing Mahendra of rekindling his affair with a woman he had met in Mumbai during his college days, Mohan claimed that they were unaware of cases registered against Kruthika’s husband in 2023 and his twin brother in 2018.
“We recently discovered that a criminal case was lodged in 2018 against Mahendra’s twin Nagendra Reddy at HAL police station (in Bengaluru). In 2023, Mahendra was accused of threatening the complainant in his twin’s case. However, a day before Kruthika’s death, the parties compromised and the cases were withdrawn,” Mohan claimed.
With Mahendra visiting Kruthika’s family multiple times after her death, claiming that he was suffering from depression, Mohan said no one suspected a thing till the FSL report was released.
“Mahendra would visit my in-laws and even enquire about the FSL report. When we were told about the Propofol traces, we realised that it was administered to her intravenously in the days leading to her death,” Mohan claimed.
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Meanwhile, seeking “the harshest punishment for this premeditated act”, Kruthika’s father Muni Reddy said in a statement, “She trusted her husband completely. She believed in his love, in his profession. But the same medical knowledge that should have saved lives was used to destroy hers.”
