Newly-transferred tahsildar murdered in Vizag hours after taking charge

Visakhapatnam: A tahsildar (mandal revenue officer) Sanapala Ramanaiah (40) was brutally murdered in his apartment complex in the Madhurawada area under PM Police limits in Visakhapatnam in the late evening of Friday over alleged real-estate issues.

The assailant is said to be a real estate businessman who smashed the head of Ramanaiah with an iron rod and fled. The injured tahsildar was rushed to a corporate hospital where he died an hour later.

Accused on the run

Commissioner of Police, Vizag, Dr A Ravi Shankar said that they have launched a manhunt to nab the killer. The police said that the deceased tahsildar did some real estate business deals with the accused while he was tahsildar at the Visakhapatnam rural office. He was transferred and took charge of Bondapalli on Friday and hours later he was killed.

Ravi Shankar said Ramanaiah reached home in Vizag city from the office to his apartment at around 8 pm on Friday. He got a phone call at 10 pm and he went to the cellar of his apartment to meet some visitors.

After they left, another person accosted the tahsildar and after heated arguments, he attacked Ramanaiah with an iron rod and fled from the spot. The police chief Ravi Shankar and his team visited the crime spot and examined the CCTV footage.

Ramanaiah hailed from Dimmilada village under Nandigama mandal of Srikakulam district and is survived by his wife and two children. He joined the revenue department a decade ago and worked in various positions.

Issues over real estate deeds

“We have established the identity of the accused who had fled from the city through air-route. The preliminary investigation has revealed that the accused owned a real-estate firm in Vizag city had incurred losses in the business and became a defaulter. The bank seized his property and sold it off in an auction,” the commissioner said.

The commissioner said the accused had visited the Visakhapatnam Rural (Chinagadili) Tahsildar officer several times and met Tahsildar Ramanaiah. There were some pending real-estate deeds (conveyance deed issues) between them over a piece of land in Vizag rural revenue limits. The real-estate deed issue was the reason for the murder of Ramanaiah, the commissioner said.

Protests against land mafia

The murder sparked protests in Visakhapatnam. The revenue officers and employees’ association strongly condemned the killing. Representatives of APNGO staged a protest at the King George Hospital mortuary and asked the police to put an end to the activities of the land mafia.

The Opposition leaders said land-related incidents increased in Visakhapatnam under the YSRC rule. The PM Palem police registered a case of murder and handed over the body to the relatives. The body was shifted to Dimmilada village for cremation.