Hyderabad: A nurse from Gangapur village who filed a missing persons complaint about her husband was arrested as the prime accused in his murder after police traced his body to an agricultural field in Elgoyi village in Manoor mandal.
Narayankhed police arrested three persons in the murder of Shambanolla Muthyam Reddy, 35, of Gangapur. His wife, Kalpana, 30, allegedly had a relationship with Gaini Pandari, 24, for the past four years.
Kalpana and Muthyam Reddy, who were married in 2012, had two daughters, both under 10 years old. While Kalpana worked as a nurse in a private hospital in Narayankhed, Muthyam Reddy worked as a borewell mechanic in the village.
Pandari, who was working as an outsourcing mechanic in TGSRTC, befriended Kalpana. Muthyam Reddy reportedly warned Kalpana over her relationship. Since he had been getting in the way of their relationship, Kalpana and Pandari decided to eliminate him.
When Reddy visited Narayankhed on May 16, Kalpana informed her lover, who took him to his village, Yelgoi in Manoor mandal, on the pretext of getting his borewell motor repaired. Pandari took the help of his brother Vittal, offered Reddy liquor and later strangled him to death before burying the body in their fields.
The day the murder was carried out, phone records proved fatal to Kalpana’s cover story. Kalpana had reportedly spoken to Pandari 16 times on May 16, the day Reddy was murdered.
Two days later, Kalpana filed a missing-persons case at the Narayankhed police station, after which the police launched an investigation and found that she had been speaking to Pandari every day. The frequency of contact between the two drew police suspicion.
During the investigation, police grew suspicious of Kalpana’s behaviour and questioned her repeatedly. Based on technical evidence and interrogation, the accused reportedly confessed to the crime. Police teams later reached the burial site near Elgoi village and exhumed the body on Saturday in the presence of officials.
Police, who exhumed the body on Sunday, arrested the accused and produced them before a magistrate. The three accused, Kalpana, Pandari, and his elder brother Gaini Vittal, 33, were taken into custody. Narayankhed Inspector G Srinivas Reddy confirmed the arrests.
The body was sent for postmortem, and forensic procedures are underway. Police said the investigation is continuing to establish the complete sequence of events and gather additional evidence.
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