Man arrested for murder of cousin

Chandanagar: The Chandanagar police on Thursday cracked a murder case, in which the accused turned out to be the cousin of the deceased woman. Police also recovered gold ornaments and three mobile phones from the possession of the accused.

The accused was identified as R Ramana Rao (36). According to police, a complaint was lodged on Monday by one R Shiva Kumar (33), in which he reported about the suspicious death of his sister named Swetha Laxmi (42) at her residence in Chandanagar.

On receipt of the complaint, police registered a case under section 174 CrPC and started investigation. On Thursday, police obtained post-mortem report from the forensic department in Gandhi Hospital, which opined that the death was due to strangulation. Then the police changed the section of case from 174 CrPC to 302 IPC.

During investigation, police found that a person by name Ramana who is the cousin of the deceased, used to visit her house regularly and since the date of her death, his whereabouts were not known.

On Thursday, they arrested the suspect at his residence in Lingampally and recovered some gold ornaments of the deceased and three mobile phones from the accused.

Police said that the accused and the deceased used to consume alcohol in her house regularly and on Sunday while consuming the alcohol she abused him alleging that she lost gold and bank balance because of him. An angered Ramana strangulated her to death and fled away from the spot.