A priest from Shamshabad, who earlier complained about his niece missing, to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) police, was arrested for her alleged murder on Friday. The police said that the man was reportedly in a relationship with the woman and allegedly killed her after she asked him to marry her and further threatened to expose their relationship.
According to the police, the accused, Ayyagari Venkat Surya Sai Krishna, 36, a priest who is also a building contractor, reportedly confessed to the murder on Friday. He reportedly confessed that he killed his niece, Kuruganti Apsara, 30, and stuffed her body in a drainage manhole and also used soil and cement concrete to cover it to avoid bad odour.
Krishna got married in 2010. He works as a priest at a temple and also was a building contractor who built temples by collecting donations and maintained a gaushala, ‘nitya annadana satram’ etc. His niece, Apsara, who worked in the cine field, met him in April 2022 when her family visited Krishna’s house in Saroornagar. They reportedly were in a relationship and in March 2023, she asked him to marry her. He stated that she also threatening to expose their affair, said the police.
Sai Krishna reportedly hatched a plan to kill her and asked her to plan a Coimbatore trip for June 3 and told the police that he dropped her at a bus stop on the night of June 3. However, during the early hours of June 4, he bludgeoned her to death at a gaushala with a stone. He then parked his car, with the body still inside, at his apartment’s parking area. Later in the day, he met her mother and told her that her phone was not reachable, following which they went to the RGIA police station to file a missing person case.
The priest told the police that she was picked up by her friend at a bus stop where he dropped her. As the statements given by him did not match the cellphone tower location of the woman, he was pulled up during questioning and he reportedly confessed to the murder.
The police said Sai Krishna confessed that on the evening of June 5, he dumped the body in a drainage manhole behind the SRO office of Saroornagar. The next day, he brought two tipper loads of red soil and covered the manhole, while burning her handbag and luggage to avoid smell. He then reportedly washed his car clean and packed the manhole cover with cement concrete the next day as the smell continued to emanate,” added the police.
