Hyderabad: A man, who was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life for kidnapping and killing a minor girl in 2014, claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case due to previous enmity with the girl’s family. However, Dabbagoti Venkatesh could not prove how he knew the girl’s skeletal remains were lying in a forest area near his native place in AP’s Prakasam district.
On his instructions, when the girl left home with 1.5 lakh cash, he took the amount from her and paid off his debts.
Police recovered the amounts from those persons and they gave statements in court during the trial.
A doctor from RIMS Ongole, who conducted a post-mortem on the skeletal remains, and a village revenue assistant, who was the panch witness for his confession, travelled to Hyderabad and gave their evidence before the court during the trial.
“The confessional statement made by the accused, coupled with the forensic evidence, strengthened the case against Venkatesh,” said the court, which delivered the verdict on Tuesday.
Venkatesh claimed that there was no eyewitness account to prove that he took the girl with him and killed her after she pressured him to marry her and also that he took money from her. “Despite the absence of direct eyewitnesses, the circumstantial evidence of the panch witnesses for his confession and recovery of the body, along with the medical evidence, corroborates the testimonies provided,” observed the court.
The court also noted that the testimonies of the key witnesses, including the girl’s mother, were corroborated by the discovery of the body and the recovery of items belonging to the girl. Circumstantial evidence like the recovery of the girl’s gold ornaments, the bike used in the crime, and the DNA evidence, all of which link the accused to the crime scene and to the victim, created a strong foundation for his conviction, said the court, ruling that there was no reasonable explanation for the girl’s death other than the involvement of the accused.
Venkatesh got acquainted with the girl as she used to call him regularly on behalf of her father to collect interest on the loan he took from the girl’s father. He then promised to marry her and had sexual intercourse with her on multiple occasions. When she insisted on marriage, he took her to Prakasam district and killed her there.
