india

Updated: Nov 07, 2019 01:22 IST

The 38-year old man, who allegedly killed 10 people over 20 months here, has been remanded to judicial custody for two weeks, police said on Wednesday. Suspecting that he might have committed more murders, police have moved a petition to seek his custody for interrogation.

Vellanki Simhadri of NTR Colony from Eluru town in West Godavari was arrested on Tuesday on the charges of killing ten people in Krishna, East Godavari and West Godavari districts between February 2018 and October 2019.Making claims of possessing supernatural powers, Simhadri would offer cyanide-laced prasadam and rob people of their cash and gold ornaments.

Simhadri was produced before the local court in Eluru on Tuesday evening and was remanded to judicial custody for two weeks. “Going by his disclosure and more than 200 numbers identified from his mobile data, he committed ten murders. But we cannot rule out the possibility of him having committed more murders,” West Godavari superintendent of police Navdeep Singh Grewal said.

Simhadri had acted so meticulously that even his wife and two children were not aware of the gruesome murders he allegedly committed. “They didn’t even know what job he was doing, but were happy with the money he was bringing. He constructed a new house and moved in two months ago,” Grewal said. Simhadri had robbed the victims of Rs 24.60 lakh in cash and 35.25 tolas of gold, police said. The police has so far recovered Rs 1.63 lakh cash and some gold from him.