GVMC ward volunteer murders elderly woman for gold in Pendurthi, held

Visakhapatnam: A 72-year-old woman was killed by a ward volunteer at Sujatha Nagar in Pendurthi of Visakhapatnam district on Sunday night. The murderer then ran away with 30 gms gold and cash.

The deceased has been identified as K Vara Lakshmi and the accused is R Venkatesh (26), a volunteer at 95th Ward (Purushothapuram) of GVMC in Visakhapatnam. He was also working part-time at a fast-food centre run by K Srinivas, the son of the deceased.

According to the police, at around 10 pm on Sunday, Venkatesh went to Srinivas’ house to give him that day’s earnings and after a while went back to the fast-food centre

Srinivas, who completed his work and returned home later at night, found his mother lying in an unconscious state. He noticed that gold ornaments were missing from her neck. He immediately dialled 100 and alerted the police. During the investigation, the police found CCTV footage of Venkatesh leaving Srinivas’ house earlier that night.

DCP (crime) G Naganna said that they have arrested the accused and the investigation is on to verify any previous criminal activities of the accused. The preliminary interrogation revealed that the ward volunteer had murdered Varalakshmi by suffocating her to death with a pillow and then stole her gold ornaments.

This is a developing story.