Priest held for murder of elderly woman in Secunderabad
Hyderabad: A temple priest, who allegedly bludgeoned an elderly woman to death when she came for darshan, was arrested by the Malkajgiri police, who have arrested a jeweler as well for purchasing the victim’s gold ornaments that the priest sold him. Police also recovered Rs.1 lakh and the stolen jewellery from the suspects, apart from […]
Hyderabad: A temple priest, who allegedly bludgeoned an elderly woman to death when she came for darshan, was arrested by the Malkajgiri police, who have arrested a jeweler as well for purchasing the victim’s gold ornaments that the priest sold him.
Police also recovered Rs.1 lakh and the stolen jewellery from the suspects, apart from a plastic drum that was used to hide the victim’s body inside the temple premises for two days after the murder.
The arrested persons were A Murali Krishna, 42, the priest and Joshi Nanda Kishore, owner of Maa Bhavani Jewelers in Vishnupuri Colony in Malkajgiri.
The victim, G Uma Devi, 56, a resident of Vishnupuri Extension Colony used to regularly go to the temple. Last Monday evening, she informed her husband and left the house, after which she was not seen. Her husband GVN Murthy, a retired railway employee, then filed a missing complaint with the Malkajgiri police.
“Her family members could find only her footwear at the temple,” police said, adding that after the family approached the police, one team searched near the temple while another team examined CCTV footage.
“Following clues, we found her body in an open place near a nala on Thursday. Her jewelry was missing. When the priest was questioned, he said she had come for a darshan, but left immediately,” an official said.
The police, not convinced with his statement, took Murali Krishna into custody and during interrogation, he reportedly confessed to killing her and stealing her jewelry.
On the day of the incident, when she came alone for a darshan, he had engaged her in a conversation and in between, bludgeoned her to death with an iron rod. He stole her gold ornaments and stuffed the body into a plastic drum, which he covered and kept on the temple premises. He washed off the blood stains on the floor and sold the gold to the jeweler, police said.
Though he tried to dispose of the body, police teams and relatives searching for the victim in the area prevented him from doing so. After two days, with foul smell emanating from the drum, he rolled it out and dumped the body near the railway track, from where it was found by the police on Thursday.
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