CHITTOOR: With the arrest of four persons, the Tirupati district police have cracked the murder of a software engineer, S Nagaraju, who was killed and torched in his own vehicle on the outskirts of Chandragiri town during the late hours of April 1.
Disclosing the case details to media on Friday, ASP A Venkata Rao said that victim S Nagaraju (35), a native of Brahmanapalli in Vedurukuppam mandal, was working as a software engineer in Bengaluru, was killed while he was trying to resolve a feud aroused out of an alleged extramarital affair involving his younger brother S Purushottam and the wife of one of the accused.
Purushotham’s alleged extramarital affair with the wife of the prime accused B Rippunjaya at their native Brahmanapalli led to frequent altercations between the two families. After Nagaraju learnt about Rippunjaya’s plan to eliminate Purushottam, Nagaraju had sent his brother to Bengaluru. In the meantime, he continued his efforts to resolve the dispute.
However, after Nagaraju recorded one of their mobile phone conversations and allegedly embarrassed Rippunjaya among the locals, the latter and his brother Chanakya Prathap plotted to kill Nagaraju.
“With the support of P Gopinath Reddy, A Ramesh and A Kumar, Rippunjaya invited Nagaraju for another round of negotiations at Chandragiri and took him to an isolated place where they made Nagaraju consume alcohol. When Nagaraju was in inebriated state, the accused choked him to death and later, they placed the victim in his car, poured petrol and set it on fire in a bid to project it as an accident”, the ASP said.
The ASP also said that they are opening rowdy sheets on all the accused.