HYDERABAD: While the bereaved family of Gundam Sankirth, here in the city, wondered what led to his alleged murder, an affidavit for arrest and detention filed by the Austin Police Department before the Austin Municipal Court Magistrate in the United States reveals that it was a discussion between the accused and the victim on whose father was doing better in business back home that led to the incident. The accused also said that he simply had a knife in his hand and tripped and fell.
In an on-camera recording of statement, as mentioned in the affidavit which is in the posession of Express, Kurremula Sai Sandeep Goud(27) told police that he along with Sankirth and Praneeth were drinking Budweiser beer on their balcony. Sandeep explained that they were having a casual argument about which of their fathers was doing better. Sandeep admitted that he stabbed the victim but said: “I had a knife in my hand because I was cooking in the kitchen and was just trying to scare the victim. I know that I am in a lot of trouble”. Sandeep claimed he fell on the victim with the knife in his hand because their legs collided and he lost balance.
Thus, the stabbing was an accident, he said. Earlier, Sandeep had told police that the victim had an accident in the kitchen while cooking and had cut himself. He said he was on the balcony when this happened. However, officers did not find any knife inside the apartment and observed blood on the balcony as well as on the broken beer bottles. Stacci Hamilton, a witness, said she heard the youngsters on the balcony and heard someone “defensively screaming” and heard clamouring of beer bottles on the balcony. She told the detective on scene that “the noises she heard were consistent with a confrontation and she believed that if someone was hurt it was not due to an accident”. The statement of the other roommate Sai Praneeth Hanmandla stated that he did not witness the incident. The autopsy performed on July 19 too concluded that the death was a homicide.