Hyderabad: A 45-year-old retired tehsildar turned realtor who had land-related disputes with her uncle, Prem Acharya, a retired IAS officer, had made plans to kill him. The woman, P. Manjula, along with her brother P. Karunaker, hatched a plan to kill their uncle and hired five people for the job. The suspects attacked Acharya with a cricket stump. While he has survived the encounter with injur-ies, the Jubilee Hills police, using CCTV footage, were able to arrest the suspects.
Besides P. Manjula and P. Karunakar, a retired government employee, gang members, B. Durga Naresh, I. Ashok and M. Sagar were also arrested. Other members of the gang, Venkateswar Rao, Ayyappa and Rajesh are absconding.
Manjula and Karunakar own multiple properties in Guntur district and at Patancheru in the city, which is worth more than Rs 10 crores. Due to the extent of property owned, they had disputes with Acharya, which they initially tried to sort out in the presence of family members. However, it remained unresolved. Eventually, Manjula and Karunakar made a plan to kill Acharya and shared this plan with Manjula’s business partner Venkateswar Rao.
“A month ago, Rao, Karunakar and Naresh came to the city and was taken to Acharya’s house. They also shared a photograph of the target with the culprits for easy identification. Later Ashok, Sagar, Ayyappa and Rajesh joined Naresh and took shelter at Kondapur. They also purchased a cricket stump to attack Acharya and also conducted a recce at Acharya’s residence at Prashasan Nagar on Thursday and noticed that he goes for a morning walk daily,” said DCP, West Zone, A.R. Srinivas. The plan was that Sagar and Ashok would attack Acharya from a bike while he was out walking.
“While Sagar was riding, Ashok who was the pillion, attacked Acharya with the stump as they approached him from the rear and immediately fled the spot,” he added. The police identified the two attackers and later arrested the other three suspects. The arrested individuals were produced before the court and sent to remand on Tuesday.
