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The death of a former official of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), who was the complainant in the TTD Parakamani theft case, is now being investigated as a murder.
Former TTD Assistant Vigilance and Security Officer (AVSO) Y Satish Kumar was found dead by the railway tracks at Komali village near Tadipatri on the morning of Friday, November 14. He had been working as a Circle Inspector with the Railway Police.
The Andhra Pradesh police reportedly added murder charges to the case based on the post-mortem report and a complaint from family members.
In what is known as the 2023 Parakamani theft case, the accused, CV Ravi Kumar, was caught allegedly stealing cash from devotees’ donations offered to the Tirumala Venkateswara temple. Satish Kumar was the complainant in the case. Parakamani is the name of the voluntary ‘service’ of counting TTD’s donations.
When the case was in a Lok Adalat court, it was closed after complainant Satish Kumar and accused Ravi Kumar said they reached a compromise. This was after Ravi Kumar donated a few properties worth crores to TTD.
On October 27, the Andhra Pradesh High Court ordered the Crime Investigation Department (CID) to launch a fresh probe into the Parakamani theft case. Multiple petitions had been filed in the High Court challenging the settlement reached in the Lok Adalat.
The CID had intensified its probe and was questioning people involved in the case. Satish Kumar was found dead just before he was expected to appear before the CID for questioning.
Police added Section 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) to the case after the post-mortem report revealed signs of injuries, according to The Times of India. The FIR was registered based on a complaint from Satish Kumar’s brother, Y Srihari. It mentions Satish Kumar’s opponents in the Parakamani theft case as suspects without naming them, according to Eenadu.
CCTV footage showed Satish Kumar reaching the Guntakal railway station around 11.50 pm on November 13 and parking his bike, The New Indian Express reported. He was reportedly planning to board the Rayalaseema Express, which reached the station around 1 am.
The police reconstructed the scene of Satish Kumar’s death by flinging two dummy bodies of his weight out of a moving train along the same route. Eenadu reported that they landed closer to the tracks than the distance at which his body was found, which was around 60 feet from the tracks.