A priest in Telangana, who was arrested for brutally murdering a young aspiring television actress and dumping her body in a manhole, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday by a local court, after he confessed to his crime to the police, which took place in 2023.
On June 3, 2023, the priest, identified as Iyyagari Venkata Sai Krishna took the actress, Kuruganti Apsara, in his car towards Shamshabad under the pretext of travelling to Coimbatore. However, as Apsara dozed off during the ride, he smothered her with the car’s cover and also thrashed her with a stone multiple times on her head, leading to fatal injuries, and she succumbed right there.
Krishna drove the car back to his apartment in Saroornagar, and kept Apsara’s body in the parking lot for two days, before deciding to get rid of it. He then dumped the body in a defunct manhole behind the Saroornagar Sub-Registrar’s Office, and filled it with red soil, before cementing it completely.
Meanwhile, he told Apsara’s mother that the actress had gone to Bhadrachalam with her friends, and when they failed to reach her, Krishna even accompanied her Apsara’s brother to the RGI Airport Police Station to file a ‘missing report’.
According to police, Krishna was already married, and he killed Apsara due to her insistence of marriage.
During the investigation, when the cops questioned Krishna, he confessed to his crime, and led police to the site where he had dumped Apsara’s body.
Krishna was booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, and on Wednesday, the Rangareddy district court in LB Nagar sentenced him to life imprisonment. He has also been ordered to pay a fine of Rs 10 lakh, out of which Rs 9.50 lakh will go to the victim’s family, while the rest will proceed towards the court.
