Life imprisonment for priest in 2023 Telangana's Shamshabad murder case
HYDERABAD: A 36-year-old priest, Iyyangari Venkata Sai Krishna, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court for murdering a woman and attempting to conceal the crime. The court also ordered him to pay `10 lakh in compensation to the family of the victim.
Sai Krishna killed 30-year-old Kuruganti Apsara in Shamshabad and later buried her body in an unused manhole near the sub-registrar’s office in Saroornagar, sealing it with sand and cement.
The Shamshabad police initially registered a missing person case in 2023. During the investigation, they uncovered evidence of murder, leading to the case being reclassified as murder.
According to the police, Sai Krishna hid the fact that he was already married while maintaining a relationship with Apsara. After exploiting her emotionally and physically, he allegedly plotted her murder when she insisted on marriage.
On June 3, 2023, he lured Apsara to Shamshabad under the pretense of a trip to Coimbatore. There, he killed her and kept her body in his car before disposing of it in the manhole.
Speaking to TNIE, Apsara’s father, Srikar Sharma, expressed his gratitude to the police, media, and judiciary. “Justice has been served. The guilty has been punished. He committed a heinous crime and has received the punishment he deserved. This judgment brings peace to my daughter’s soul,” he added.
Public prosecutor Vodyarapu Ravikumar said, “This crime is not just an act of violence but a betrayal that shakes society’s conscience. Sai Krishna, a self-proclaimed priest, managed a Vedapatashala, a Goshala, and was involved in temple development. He was expected to uphold spiritual and moral values, yet he committed a premeditated crime and attempted to erase the evidence.”
Adding to his deception, on June 5, the accused misled Apsara’s mother, falsely claiming that her daughter had gone to Bhadrachalam with friends and was unreachable. He even accompanied her to the police station and filed a false missing person report at the RGI Airport Police Station.