The Andhra Pradesh police have identified the charred body found in a suitcase in Tirupati five days ago as that of Bhuvaneswari (27), an employee of an IT major in Hyderabad.
Bhuvaneswari was reported missing, and her husband, Maramreddy Sreekanth Reddy, is now a suspect in her murder and is absconding. The charred body was found near the SVRR Government General Hospital. A forensic team said the body was that of a woman aged around 30 years.
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The police then checked the CCTV footage around the hospital and managed to arrest a taxi driver, who is suspected to have helped the main accused in disposing of the body. His interrogation led the police to establish the identity of the victim – Bhuvaneswari. She belonged to Chittoor district and was married to Sreekanth Reddy in 2019.
The couple lived in Tirupati with their 18-month-old daughter as Bhuvaneswari was working from home following the COVID pandemic.
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Sreekanth Reddy, an engineer by education, was associated with an online organization that fights corruption. He has been unemployed for the last few months. “The body was 90 per cent burnt. Sreekanth bought a big suitcase at Reliance Mart and used it for packing the body. He later tried to burn it,” said Tirupati Urban police chief Ramesh Reddy, adding the investigation indicates that Bhuvaneswari was murdered.
CCTV footage shows Sreekanth bringing in a suitcase into their apartment complex, holding his daughter with one hand, and rolling the suitcase with the other. The police have sent samples for forensic examination. Every part of the body had been burnt except some bones and the skull.
Sreekanth is reported to have told relatives that his wife had died of COVID. The relatives then visited several hospitals and morgues looking for her.
Bhuvaneswari was a software engineer and worked in Hyderabad in a big IT firm. The couple moved to Tirupati after Srikanth lost his job three months ago. The couple reportedly had frequent fights, the police said, adding, Srikanth might have killed her in a fit of rage and later disposed of the body after burning it.