Vijayawada: Gang of 5 held for brutally murdering 6 aged persons

Vijayawada: City police busted a gang of five members, who allegedly murdered six elderly people and looted their valuables. The gang members in early 20s, allegedly murdered four women living alone in four separate incidents near Vijayawada and a couple in Kanchikacharla. The gang committed murders between October 2020 and June 2021. The gang was finally arrested by the police in Penamaluru.

The gang members Velpuri Prabhukumar, 22, of Poranki, Sunkara Gopiraju, 22, of Poranki, Ponamala Chakravarti alias Chakri,21, of Tadigadapa, Moram Naga Durgarao alias Chanti, 21 of Tadigadapa and Maddi Phaneendra Kumar,20, of Kamayya Topu hatched the plans and conducted recces before murdering the women, Vijayawada Commissioner of Police B Srinivasulu told media giving details of the gang and their modus operandi.

Three accused Prabhukumar, Durgarao and Chakravarti are autodrivers. Sunkara Gopiraju is a vegetable vendor and Phaneendra is a painter. All live in nearby areas and three of them are in the same profession. They developed friendship and decided to murder the elderly people and rob gold and cash from their homes.

They visit some colonies on the pretext of vegetable vendors and choose the targets. They act very cleverly and kill the people in the same manner by suffocating them to death by pressing the nose with pillow. They killed a 58-year-old woman Nalini, a resident of Vishnupuram colony, Poranki village and robbed the gold ornaments in October, 2020. Later, the gang murdered Sita Mahalakshmi,62, of Poranki village in November 2020. After that they allegedly murdered Talluru Dhanalakshmi, 58, a resident of Karmika Nagar, Tadigadapa in January 2021 and they killed a old woman Papamma,85, a resident of Poranki village in June 2021. The elderly woman was living alone near old post office.

In addition to these four murdered, they killed a couple aged 80 and 75 years respectively in Kanchikacharla. They murdered the old couple Nageswara Rao and Prameela Rani while they were asleep in their home in December 2020. Kanchikacharla police have registered a case and took up the investigation. They also robbed gold articles and other valuables in house breaking incidents in Tadigadapa in March 2021. Altogether, they robbed about 40 Tolas of gold and sold some.

The commissioner of police said the gang also conducted recces to murder some more old people in Kankipadu, Vuyyuru, Penamaluru, Tenali and Mangalagiri. Finally the gang was arrested in Penamaluru on Wednesday.

Two members of the gang were arrested in connection with the unsuccessful attempt to rob a bank ATM in Poranki junction under the Penamaluru police station limits. The police collected the finger prints and other clues from the ATM. The clues were matched with the finger prints collected from the house of offence where two elderly women were murdered in Kanchikacharla in December 2020.

During the course of interrogation, the gang confessed to the crimes they made since October, 2020. The family members and relatives of the victims had not complained to the police about the deaths because they felt it was a natural death.