A ward volunteer brutally killed a 72-year-old woman and absconded with gold and cash on Saturday, July 29, police said. The incident took place in Sujatha Nagar, under Pendurthi police station limits, in Vizag city.
Police said the accused, R Venkatesh, 26, smothered the victim, Kotagiri Varalakshmi, with a pillow, causing her death. Apart from working as a ward volunteer, Venkatesh used to work part-time with the victim’s son, K Srinivas, at a food stall.
Venkatesh used to visit Srinivas’ home once in a while to hand over the daily earnings to his mother. On Sunday evening, around 10:00 pm, Srinivas sent Venkatesh to his house for the same, and he returned to the stall after an hour.
However, when Srinivas returned to his house around 12:30 am, he was saw his mother lying unconscious on the bed. Srinivas noticed that the cash and gold ornaments were also missing from the house. Srinivas informed the police about the incident. The Pendurthi police rushed to the spot. The apartment was under CCTV surveillance, so they immediately scanned to the CCTV footage of that night. The CCTV footage revealed that Venkatesh had entered the house and smothered Srinivas’ mother with a pillow to death.
Police have apprehended the accused, and the victim’s body has been sent to King George Hospital (KGH) in Visakhapatnam for post-mortem.
