HYDERABAD: Police on Saturday arrested two priests over their alleged involvement in the attempted murder of a temple staffer in Saidabad. The accused — Raikod Hariputhra (31) and Aripirala Raja Shekhar Sharma (41), who are priests at the Bhulakshmi temple — threw a chemical substance at the victim, Chintala Narsimha Rao alias Gopi, on Friday.
According to police officers, the accused admitted during interrogation that due to personal disputes, they planned to harm Gopi using a chemical substance. Sharma said the temple staffer was not depositing the token amounts and behaving rudely with him, the police said, adding that there were other unresolved issues between them.
To execute the plan, the 41-year-old priest hired Hariputhra for Rs 2,000, paying Rs 1,000 in advance. After committing the offence, Hariputhra fled on his bike while Sharma disposed of the chemical bottle in an open area, which is yet to be recovered for further investigation. WhatsApp conversations and call records between the accused before and after the offence showed their involvement, the police added.
During the investigation, six teams, in collaboration with the southeast zone Task Force sleuths, were formed to track down the accused. The teams reviewed nearly 400 CCTV footage clips, tracing the sequence of events from the crime scene to the location where Hariputhra was eventually apprehended.