Three more accused arrested in gang-rape, murder case

Three more persons were arrested in the sensational gang-rape and murder of the 41-year-old housewife here on Wednesday. The woman was sexually assaulted and strangled to death by six persons on March 15 at her apartment located at NSM School Road.

Two key accused Md. Subhani (27) and S. Gopi Krishna (24) were arrested by the Patamata police on Monday. On Wednesday Janapala Krishna (24), Lankapalli Ramana (29) and V. Durga Rao alias Kayya (21) were arrested. The hunt for the sixth accused is still on.

The main accused Subhani, who worked as a driver of the apartment owner, came along with two others on the pretext of repairing a water pipeline in the bathroom. He and the two others had raped her and then the other three subjected her to sexual assault, police said. They later strangled her to conceal their identity and hid the body in the adjacent flat belonging to the owners of the apartment complex. Subhani had the keys with him as the owners had gone out of town.

During the wee hours of Sunday, they dumped the body in an irrigation canal and it was fished out of the canal on March 17. The police maintain that Subhani was earlier involved in another gang-rape case in 2003 and had been obsesses with subject of sex. “His accomplices too had similar traits. After the murder, they packed the clothes of the victim, took her cell phone, gold ornaments and slippers to project as if she had eloped with someone. They had also cleaned up the house to make everything look normal, as if the victim simply walked away,” he said.

The DCP also informed that Subhani even initially volunteered to find her and at the same time travelled to Guntur and other places like Palanadu and called from the victim’s phone and informed the family members that she was safe and had eloped with the person whom she liked. “He would change his tone each time,” said the DCP.

According to the DCP the gang-rape and murder was planned by Subhani and the others and fall under the rarest of rare cases and a fast track court is likely to be set up to try the case.