Husband, in-laws arrested for woman’s murder

Five persons have been arrested in connection with the murder of P. Vara Laxmi (25) who was strangled to death on July 3.

According to the police, the five accused have been identified as P. Siva Vamsi Krishna (husband), P. Brahmaneswara Rao (father-in-law) Pushpavathi (mother-in-law), Sowjanya (sister-in-law) and Satya Kumar (brother-in-law).

“We have produced the five accused in the case before the local court which sent them to judicial custody,” said Avanigadda Deputy Superintendent of Police Syed Khadhar Basha. The police had exhumed the remains of the body from a local drain on Thursday. They sent the bones of the victim for DNA tests to establish the identity.

The prime accused had confessed to committing the crime before a local revenue official on Thursday as rumours had spread about the body of a woman being buried in a drain near Barrenkela village in Nagayalanka mandal.

Ms. Vara Laxmi belonging to Srikakulam district had married Vamsi, a photographer based in Hyderabad, in May 2013. Unable to accept the inter-caste marriage, her in-laws had assaulted her in Hyderabad in June 2013. She had lodged a complaint with the S.R. Nagar police in Hyderabad then.

“The case was settled as Vara Laxmi and Vamsi had compromised after the latter ensured that his family members would not attack her in future,” said Mr. Khadhar Basha.

The in-laws since then bore a grudge against Vara Laxmi and also wanted to take revenge on her as she did not invited them for naming ceremony of her baby boy observed recently in Guntur district. Meanwhile, Appala Naidu, the victim’s father, had approached to the Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission stating that his daughter had gone missing since July 3, this year.