The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Manohar shifted to Gandhinagar jail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 09, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Manohar shifted to Gandhinagar jail

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, JULY 8. Y. Manohar, the accused person in the murder of the MCA student, Sri Lakshmi, was shifted to the District jail at Gandhinagar on Thursday at the end of the three-day police remand. Amid tight security, the accused was brought to the court of the Third Metropolitan Magistrate, G.Ramgopal, by a police team. The Magistrate directed that Manohar be lodged in the jail till July 14. The city police was granted police custody of the accused for three days, from July 5 to 7.

The city police led by the Vijayawada North Circle Inspector, D.V. Nageswara Rao, on Wednesday carried out an eight-hour "scene reconstruction'' exercise by taking Manohar along with them to various places in the city and Guntur. The accused person first led the investigating team to the bus stop near Urvasi theatre in Gandhinagar where he reportedly alighted from a bus coming from Ongole and entered the Sharada College. The team spent about two hours at the college trying to reconstruct the scene at the classroom where the murder occurred. From there, the police team went to the house of Manohar's sister, Uma Maheswari, at Machavaram, where Manohar allegedly hid the blood-stained knife and his shirt.

Thereafter, the investigating team was taken to Singarayakonda where Manohar, after allegedly committing the offence, is said to have stayed for a few hours at the house of his maternal aunt, Varalamma, before fleeing to Chennai.

The police said that Manohar fully cooperated with the officials in giving them a detailed account of his alleged entry and exit from the college on June 21, the day of the murder. According to investigating officials, the scene reconstruction was conducted with methodical precision to ensure that no loopholes were left while filing the chargesheet in the case.

Police are hopeful of filing the chargesheet within the next 30 days to ensure early completion of the trial. Manohar was on Tuesday subjected to a lie detection test at Hyderabad wherein he was asked some 30-odd questions pertaining to Sri Lakshmi's murder. The report of the test is expected to be out in the next couple of days and would form the basis for establishing the scientific evidence in the case.

A senior police official said that the department would produce about a dozen eyewitnesses to the murder during the trial, as there were about 20 students who were present at the time of the murder. With Manohar's parents refusing to move a bail petition on his behalf and the Bezawada Bar Association resolving not to defend the accused, it remains to be seen whether any civil liberties organisation would come forward to take up his case.

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