Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), August 12: After a relentless 49
days of search, one of the main accused in the gang rape case on banks of Krishna
river at Seethanagaram was nabbed, and produced before media.
Guntur (Urban), Superintendent of Police (SP), Hafeez
informed reporters, “The police worked very hard to nab the accused in the rape
case. The incident took place on the night of June 19, 2021. Main accused S
Krishna Kishore (28) was nabbed on Saturday. The accused have a criminal record.”
Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) of Guntur range, Trivikram
Varma while speaking with the media confirmed, “The second main accused R
Venkata Reddy is still absconding.”
Another person, Shaik Habeeb (29), caught in connection with
helping the accused was also produced by the Police on Saturday evening,
alongwith the main accused, before media.
On June 19, around 9:30 pm, R Venkata Reddy and S Krishna
Kishore (now in custody), overpowered a woman and her fiance at Seethanagaram
Pushkar Ghat in Tadepalli on the sand banks of Krishna river and gang raped the
woman who hails from Vijayawada city and used to work as a nurse.
The girl employed with a local private hospital had come to
spend some leisure time with her fiance after finishing her duty hours. This
was when the criminal duo eyed them.
Reddy and Kishore threatened of killing the couple with a
razor blade and compelled them to disrobe. They tied the couple with their own clothes
and raped the woman. Later, they snatched their phones and threatened them of
dire consequences, if they revealed what had transpired, to anyone.
Shockingly just before this incident, the duo had murdered a
hawker who used to sell peanuts in trains.
According to the police, Kishore ekes out a living doing
ceiling works in house constructions and came in contact with Tadepalli
Mahanadu resident Reddy, who does cupboard works. "Both of them used to go
to work together and spend the money earned to fund their wayward lifestyle.
But when there was no work, they took to stealing copper wires from railway
tracks," the police official said.
On that fateful day around 8 pm, when they were trying to
steal copper wires from Seethanagaram railway bridge, a train halted by and a
peanut vendor disembarked to see what the duo was up to.
Fearing that the hawker might disclose their crime, they
caught him and tied his hands and legs. Later, they fastened a noose on his
neck with a copper wire and strangled him to death, and dumped his body in the river.
After killing the hawker and loitering on the sand banks of
the river, the duo laid their eyes on the couple and proceeded to follow up the
murder with a gang rape.
Sensing that the police might come to the crime spot, Reddy
and Krishna fled in a boat towards Vijayawada. They reached Ranigari Thota and
slept on the sand bank of the river that night.
The next morning, the duo went to Tadepalli and gave the cell
phones stolen from the couple to their friend Habeeb to sell. Later, they ran away
to Ongole and spent a day there, after which they separated.
From then on, Krishna roamed in Hubli in Karnataka and
worked for a week in Nirmal, Telangana, and another week in nearby Bainsa as a
labourer. Then he took a train to Secunderabad and lived by rag picking and
stayed at a Saibaba temple near Secunderabad railway station.
However, on Saturday, he decided to see his mother for some
time. Kishore reached Vijayawada by train and was walking by the tracks towards
Tadepalli when police swooped down on him.
Guntur Police had formed six teams to nab the accused but
have only managed to capture Kishore, while Reddy is still on the run. The
teams searched for them in AP, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and several other places.
However, Andhra Pradesh Police reiterated that their manhunt
for the second main accused in the sensational Tadepalli rape case, still continues,
and will be concluded soon.