In a gruesome incident, a youth allegedly hacked his uncle, a retired college principal, to death on March 10 (Sunday) night, while the deceased’s spouse, a government teacher, who watched the gory murder, died of a heart stroke in the early hours of Monday. The incident took place at the couple’s residence in front of the JNTU-Anantapur University here.
According to Anantapur urban police, the couple, Murthy Rao (59) and Shobha (54), had settled in Anantapur several years ago. The husband retired as the principal of a private engineering college recently, while the wife works as a government teacher at Tadimarri in the neighboring Satya Sai district. The couple has a residential complex, which they have given for rentals, in front of the JNTU campus.
Meanwhile, one of the tenants staying in the complex asked the couple to visit his portion as he was set to vacate it. The couple reached there on Sunday night, wherein Murthy Rao’s nephew, identified as Adhitya (26), lurking at a corner and watching the couple entering the building, pounced on Murthy Rao and allegedly stabbed him in the neck multiple times, before slitting his throat.
The wife, Sobha, watching the brutal murder, collapsed to the ground and was rushed to the government area hospital. In the early hours of Monday, she was declared dead by duty doctors, citing cardiac arrest as the reason.
The police said that Adiya was the son of Murthy Rao’s elder sister. Completing his B.Tech in 2019, the accused had reportedly gone into bad ways, which forced Murthy Rao to avoid him. The neighbors informed the police that Aditya had nursed a personal grudge against his uncle for ‘not helping him get a job‘. The couple is survived by a son, who works as a software engineer, and a daughter working as a bank employee in Bengaluru.
Superintendent of Police K.K.N. Anburajan said that a special party was formed to track down the accused.
