Peddapalli: The Peddapalli police unravelled the mystery behind the killing of Kampelli Shankar, whose dismembered body parts were found at different places in the Ramagundam coal belt area, with the arrest of one Poyyila Raju.
The motive behind the murder was an illicit affair with the deceased’s wife and it seems the accused has taken cue from Telugu movies ‘Detective’ and ‘Naa Peru Shiva’ in which the killers chop the bodies into pieces and dispose off them at different places in a bid to ensure that identity of the killed is not established. However, investigators unravelled the mystery and arrested Poyyila Raju, who had killed Shankar. After killing Shankar, Raju chopped the body into pieces and dumped it at different places, according to Commissioner of Police S Chandrashekhar Reddy.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, the SP said Raju, working as a sweeper in NTPC Dhanvanthari hospital, had an illicit affair with Hemalatha, wife of the deceased. She was working as a head nurse in the same hospital. After knowing about his wife’s illicit affair, Shankar used to frequently quarrel with Hemalatha. When she informed about her husband’s harassment to Raju, he had decided to kill Shankar.
“On November 25, at around 10.30 pm, Shankar called Raju and warned him, but taking it as an advantage, Raju invited Shankar to his home in NTPC township and offered liquor. After consuming liquor, Raju hit Shankar on his head with a beer bottle. When Shankar was unconscious, Raju stabbed Shanker indiscriminately with knives leading to his death,” the police said.
“Raju later chopped the body into seven pieces and dropped the head, hands and legs at different places. The next day, he met Hemalatha near the hospital and informed her about Shankar’s murder. Based on her advice, he dropped the remaining two body parts near RTC quarters in the Sapthagiri colony and Medipalli OCP-IV graveyard. He also hid the bike of the deceased,” the police further said.
NTPC police, who registered a missing case based on the complaint lodged by Pochamma, the deceased’s mother, found the head and a hand near Malyalapalli and legs near Basanthnagar respectively on November 27. Since the deceased’s mother expressed doubt on her daughter-in-law, police took Hemalatha into custody on November 27. During interrogation, she spilled the beans following which cops on Monday arrested Raju at Telangana Power plant chowk. In 2014, Raju married one Sandhya from Kundanapalli of Ramagundam mandal. Unable to tolerate his ‘abnormal’ behaviour, she divorced him in 2016.