Hyderabad: A retired Mandal Parishad Development Officer (MPDO) and Right to Information (RTI) activist was allegedly strangled to death and thrown in a pond near a stone crusher in Jungaon district on June 15.
His body was recovered on Sunday.
Nalla Ramakrishnaiah, 70 from Pochannapet village of Bachannapet Mandal had gone missing on Thursday.
Before leaving, he reportedly told his son Ashok that he was going to file a complaint with the Bachannapet police.
However, police have stated that Ramakrishnaiah was kidnapped and murdered by a gang.
G Anjaiah (husband of a ZPTC member belonging to BRS), D Srikanth, and Shivarathri Basha alias Bhaskar were arrested as accused in the case while two other accused, D Thirupati and D Raju, are absconding.
Additionally, Rs 15000 in cash, three mobile phones, and a car was seized by the police from the possession of the accused.
Speaking to the media, Warangal Commissioner of Police (CP) AV Ranganath said that the arrested people have confessed to the crime during an interrogation.
According to the police, Ramakrishnaiah had filed an RTI application and approached the Human Rights Commission challenging the allocation of government-assigned land, measuring 8.04 acres, in Pochannapet village.
This land was however occupied by G Anjaiah who had allegedly misled officials and acquired land pattas.
Ramakrishnaiah also had filed a complaint in court seeking the cancellation of the land pattas earlier.
Ramakrishnaiah’s actions angered Anjaiah and he decide to eliminate him. He then hired four people and asked them to kill Ramakrishnaiah’s by paying them Rs 8 lakh.
On June 15, Anjaiah paid Rs 2.5 lakh as advance to the gang members, who abducted Ramakrishnaiah from the outskirts of Pochannapet and forcibly took him to an isolated area.
They strangled Ramakrishnaiah with a towel and disposed of his body in a quarry pond in the Champak Hills area after he died.
Later, his body was found by the nearby locals who alerted the police, following which the cops arrived and sent the victim’s body for an autopsy.
“The task force along with the Bachannapet police were able to trace the accused within an hour of the recovery of the dead body,” said the commissioner.
“Anjaiah confessed to his involvement in the crime and also revealed that he hired the same gang to kill his sister-in-law, Subhadra, on October 20, 2022, over a land dispute,” the commissioner added.
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