4 held for rape and murder behind 32 rapes in AP?

ELURU

: Four men arrested on Sunday for the rape and murder of a woman near a monastery on Feb 24 in West Godavari are alleged to have raped, and in some cases also killed, at least 32 women since 2017 in Andhra Pradesh.


The arrested were identified as Potluri Ankama Rao, Thupakula Somayya, Thupakula Gangayya and Nagaraju by West Godavari police. The men are accused of attacking a couple and then raping the woman before killing her at Jeelakarragudem of Kamavarapu Kota mandal in West Godavari on Feb 24.

West Godavari SP M Ravi Prakash said the accused were serial killers who preyed on couples in isolated places and their actions were on the lines of Telugu crime flick “Dandupalyam”. He said the gang first struck in a plantation of Vadlamanuru in Agiripalli mandal in 2017. Since then the men had raped 32 women, but only a few cases were registered, including two in Krishna, one in Ibrahimpatnam, two in Nuziveedu, one in Madhira in

Khammam

and one case in Thadikalapudi in

West Godavari district

.