The police said the woman had hired a gang of unemployed B Tech graduates for the murder and had paid them off with her wedding ring. The police said the woman had hired a gang of unemployed B Tech graduates for the murder and had paid them off with her wedding ring.

A newly-married woman was arrested in connection with the murder of her husband in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district on Tuesday, a day after she accused three unidentified men of killing the 30-year-old during a robbery. The police said the woman had hired a gang of unemployed B Tech graduates for the murder and had paid them off with her wedding ring.

The woman, Y Saraswati (22), had lodged a case at Garugubilli police station of Parvathipuram sub-division on Monday saying three unidentified men had killed her husband, Yamaka Gowrishankar, and robbed her bridal jewellery around 8pm at ITDA park in Thotapalli. The police had launched a massive manhunt and locked down Vizianagaram district to nab the accused.

After preliminary probe, the police said Saraswati, in connivance with her lover Maddu Shiva, an unemployed B Tech graduate from Vizag, had planned to kill Gowrishankar. They said, Shiva had hired Saripalli Rama Krishna, a local thug with two attempt to murder cases against him, and two B Tech graduates Merugu Gopi and Gurrala Bangaruraju for executing the crime. They also hired an autorickshaw of Devarapalli Kishore.

The police said that Saraswati paid an advance of Rs 8,000 using an online money transfer mobile application, while Shiva paid Rs 10,000 in cash to the contract killers.

Vizianagaram SP G P Raju, said that on Monday, Gowrishankar, an electrical engineer working in Bellary, and Saraswati were returning from a motorcycle servicing showroom in Parvatipuram, when the contract killers followed the couple in the autorickshaw, as per the plan. They attacked Gowrishankar at a secluded spot, where Saraswati asked him to stop on some pretext, police said.

“They (the contract killers) hit him with an iron in the back of head and Gowrishankar collapsed and died on the spot,” said SP Raju. The police cracked the crime after an autorickshaw, with three people on board, were detained at a check post. “When they were taken to police station, they spilled the beans,” the SP said.

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