Seethanagaram rape case: Seven weeks on, accused nabbed by police

Nearly seven weeks since the incident of rape incident involving a young nursing student from Vijayawada on the Krishna river bank, Guntur Urban police nabbed the two accused on Saturday, August 7. The incident had drawn wide attention, since it happened at the Seethanagaram Pushkar Ghat in Tadepalli, less than 3 km away from the residence of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy. According to the police, the arrested accused, identified as Krishna Kishore, has also confessed to killing a man just before the rape. 

Krishna, who had escaped to Telangana, had returned to meet his mother when he was nabbed near Vijayawada on Saturday, the police said. The other accused, Venkat Reddy, is still on the run, reports say.

The incident of rape took place on June 19, when the complainant, a resident of Ajit Singh Nagar, had gone to the Seethanagaram Pushkar Ghat with her boyfriend. As the two of them were walking along the Krishna river bank, they said that two men threatened them by showing them blades, tied up the woman’s boyfriend and raped her. They then grabbed the couple’s cell phones and the woman’s earrings and absconded, the woman told the police. According to the police, the two assailants, Krishna and Venkat, were involved in construction work. When they were out of work, they would steal copper wire from railway tracks, police said. 

Based on their interrogation, police found that on June 19, around 8 pm, the two men were stealing copper wire on the Seethanagaram railway bridge, when a peanut seller got down from the train and spotted them. Afraid that he would inform the police, the two men strangled him with the copper wire and dumped his body from the bridge into the Krishna river, according to the police. 

According to Krishna’s confession to the police, they then got off the bridge, drank liquor and were walking along the Krishna river bank when they saw the complainant and her boyfriend. They then threatened to kill them by pointing blades at them, tied them up with the woman’s clothes, raped the woman, took their cell phones and threatened to kill them if they complained to anyone before letting them go. When they later noticed the police coming towards their location, they took a boat that was anchored nearby and went to Vijayawada, and then on to Tadepalli, where they pawned the cell phones with an acquaintance. The two men then went to Ongole and split ways to escape the police, as per Krishna’s confession. 

Krishna then travelled to Hubli, and did construction jobs in Nirmal and Bhainsa in Telangana, before going to Secunderabad, where he would collect and sell scrap for a living. Planning to visit his mother, he had travelled to Vijayawada by train and was walking towards Tadepalli along the railway tracks when the police nabbed him on Saturday afternoon based on information received by Circle Inspector P Seshagiri Rao. On interrogation, he confessed to having killed the peanut seller, and having raped the woman, the police said.  

The incident had triggered strong criticism from the opposition, with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders hitting out at the YSRCP government for the delay in nabbing the culprits. In the wake of the incident, the state government started an extensive campaign to convince women to download the Disha SOS mobile app, which allows women in distress to make quick emergency calls to the police.