- Aishwarya and her lover, bank manager Tirumal Rao, conspired to murder her husband Tejeswar in Andhra Pradesh
- Tejeswar was killed after being lured to survey land; his throat was slit and he was stabbed in the stomach
- Aishwarya’s mother Sujatha, who worked at the same bank, was also involved and all three were arrested
Days after a man's body was found in a canal in Andhra Pradesh, the police have found that he was murdered by his wife and her lover, tracing eerie similarities with the honeymoon murder mystery that had bloodied the hills of Meghalaya less than a month ago.
Aishwarya, 23, from Kurnool, married Tejeswar, a 26-year-old land surveyor and dancer in Telangana's Gadwal, on May 18, after convincing him that she was in love with him. A month later, the husband went missing. The woman and her mother, Sujatha, were detained by the police after Tejeswar's family alleged Aishwarya's role in the murder.
The police have found that within a month of her wedding, Aishwarya had conspired with a married bank manager she had an affair with, to hire three men to eliminate her husband. Her mother, Sujatha, worked at the same Non-Banking Financial Corporation (NBFC).
Tirumal Rao, a bank manager in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, was later identified as the lover of the woman. He had even paid Rs 2 lakh advance to the three people who had approached him for loans to eliminate Tejeswar, Jogulamba Gadwal district SP T Srinivas Rao told NDTV.
Both Andhra and Telangana police worked on the case, he added.
The officer said eight suspects, including Aishwarya and Rao, have been arrested. Sujatha, who had preliminary knowledge of the offence, and Rao's father, a retired head constable who tried to protect his son from the police, are among those arrested.
Rao had presumed that the victim would be reported missing and his body would never be found, but still had an escape plan ready. He had reportedly taken a Rs 20 lakh loan and booked tickets for himself and Aishwarya to flee to Ladakh.
The police said Rao had earlier planned to eliminate his wife, whom he married eight years ago, as the couple did not have any children. He is said to have even had an affair with Aishwarya's mother Sujatha, who worked as a sweeper at his bank. Aishwarya had replaced her mother at the job during her absence, and this is when the two developed a relationship.
Her mother had reportedly discouraged this relationship and pressured Aishwarya to marry Tejeswar. But Aishwarya wasn't ready. Her marriage to Tejeswar was fixed for February 13 this year, but she reportedly went incognito and later broke off her wedding.
She later convinced Tejeswar that she had gone missing because her mother was unable to pay dowry and insisted that she was ready to marry him. He agreed to marry her against his family's advice over rumours of her affair with Rao. On May 18, they tied the knot.
Between February and June, Aishwarya and Rao exchanged 2,000 phone calls, police said, adding that even during her wedding, she was constantly on the phone. Her in-laws chided her for his behaviour, but she argued she was talking to her mother.
Tejeswar's family in Gadwal reported him missing on June 18, by when he had already been murdered, said the official, pointing to CCTV footage that showed him getting into a car that went towards Kurnool. "The killers took him in a car on the pretext of surveying a land. He was on the seat beside the driver when they slit his throat and subsequently stabbed him in the stomach," said SP Srinivas.
They showed the body to Rao over the phone and then threw it in the canal.
"The plan was to bury him in the layout of a land they had gone to survey in Kurnool, but noticing some people there, they dumped it in a canal. But there wasn't enough water in it. We used cell phone signals to track Tejeswar's location. By the time we found the body, it was putrefied. A tattoo on his arm saying "amma" in Telugu helped us identify the body," said the SP.
After Tejeswar went missing, his family suspected Aishwarya and Rao were behind his disappearance. At that time, Aishwarya was still living with her in-laws.
"Aishwarya continued to stay in her in-laws' house for four days after Rao informed her that her husband had been killed. The plan was for her to return home to Kurnool and for the two to escape to Ladakh," said the police.
Tejeswar's murder surfaced weeks after Raja Raghuvanshi's killing by his wife Sonam and her lover Raj Kushwaha during their honeymoon in Meghalaya last month.
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