In a brutal murder that was caught on camera, a yoga teacher was killed on Friday night after unidentified people attacked him with iron rods in the middle of the road.
The victim, identified as Polamarasetti Venkataramana, was near his house at the Marripalem VUDA layout area, when he was murdered.
The video captured by the CCTV camera shows the victim standing by the road, when an assailant comes up to him from behind and hits him hard. As Polamarasetti collapses, the accused repeatedly thrashes him before rushing away.
A second accused is also seen in the visuals, who follows up on the first accused and thrashes the victim to death.
The police suspect the role of a local journalist with a vernacular newspaper, identified as Kilaparti Venkataramana, and have named him as the main accused in the case.
According to reports, Polamarasetti was a yoga teacher in Vietnam but the local journalist had filed a complaint against him in Gopalapatnam police station.
Due to this, Polamarasetti's passport was impounded, and he was stranded in India.
The police said that Kilaparti Venkataramana's son was also a yoga teacher in Vietnam, who was facing tough competition from Polamarasetti, and are investigating if this could be the motive for the crime.
Polamarasetti is survived by an ex-wife, his live-in partner and a two-year-old son.
This was also the second murder in the coastal city in less than a week.
On Thursday, a 64-year-old man’s body was found after he was brutally murdered near Andhra University quarters.
The deceased was identified as B Venkata Ramana Murthy, a Kancharapalem resident who was a retired railway employee. The murder occurred in the jurisdiction of the Three-Town Police Station, who said that financial disputes and old rivalry might have been the motive for the murder.