The Andhra Pradesh police have cracked the murder case of a woman in Visakhapatnam, whose partly burnt body was found near Gopalapatnam on May 3 with the arrest of her live-in partner on Saturday evening. 

The police said that the accused, identified as R Satish, strangled the deceased, identified as K Sujata, before he set her body on fire.

When quizzed about the motive, police officers said that Sujatha had objected to Satish's plans to marry someone else.

Media reports stated that Sujata, who hailed from Guntur district, was a divorcee and had two sons with a man from Nellore district. She moved to Visakhapatnam in 2011 after separating with her husband. 

It was here that she befriended Satish, who ran a photo studio at NAD Kotha Road Junction. The duo soon moved in together in 2016. 

Of late however, Sujata was irked at Satish's plans to marry someone else and reportedly even went to his village, seeking for an intervention from the elders. She claimed that Satish had already married her in Simhachalam and they had tied the knot.

Following this, Satish planned to kill her and picked her up for a movie on May 3. 

“After the movie, Satish took Sujata to an isolated place near the Railway Layout and strangled her to death with a nylon rope. In his bid to destroy the evidence, he doused her body with the petrol from the fuel tank of his bike before setting it afire,” DCP (L&O), South Zone, T Ravi Kumar Murthy told reporters.

The police managed to establish the identity of the body based on the jewellery she was wearing. Based on this, Sujata’s relatives managed to recognise her and informed the police.

The police also monitored CCTV footage from nearby areas and managed to trace the accused and arrest him.