The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Pastors' killings: 5 more held

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Pastors' killings: 5 more held

Staff Reporter

Two others still at large; more leads on Goverdhan's role

HYDERABAD: The police picked up five more persons in connection with killing of a gospel preacher, K. Daniel, and a pastor, K. Issac Raju, late on Wednesday night.

The prime accused, Goverdhan, who had already been arrested, had admitted to police that he and two of his associates carried out the killings. However, further investigation had revealed that a total of eight persons were involved in the two murders.

While Raju Singh, Satyanarayana, Shankar and Narsing and another person were rounded up, two others were still at large. Satyanarayana was picked up from Bhainsa of Adilabad district. He had reportedly revealed the exact number of persons involved in the two cases and narrated the sequence of events that led to the murders.

Meanwhile, inquiries revealed that the Jeedimetla police arrested Goverdhan three years ago on the charge of attempting to extort money from one Vinod Kumar of HMT Colony. Goverdhan and his associates, claiming themselves as Red Tigers, wrote a letter to Mr. Vinod Kumar demanding money.

They charged that Kumar was misappropriating the funds collected in the name of constructing a temple in the locality.

After dropping the letter in the letterbox of Kumar's house, they continued their threats over phones. So careful were Goverdhan and his associates that they used to call only from landlines of public telephone booths.

However, their extortion bid came to an end when police zeroed in on them by fixing a caller identification instrument in Mr. Kumar's house.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh