A 30-year-old woman from the Siddipet district of Telangana who allegedly got her estranged husband, a transgender person, murdered using hitmen, was arrested along with the two men hired to do the crime, police said on Sunday.
The woman, who allegedly offered ₹ 18 lakh to the contract killers to eliminate her 35-year-old partner, had paid an advance of ₹ 4.6 lakh to the two hired assassins and got her husband "killed" on December 11 last year.
Couple Separated Shortly After Husband Came Out as Transgender
Police, who had initially registered a case of suspicious death, during the course of investigation arrested the woman and the two hired killers on Saturday, Jan. 6 on charge of murder.
According to sources, the victim, identified as Roja (Daripalli Venkatesh), married Veda Shree, a resident of Bhoi Galli Colony in Siddipet, in 2014, and the couple had a baby in 2015, as reported by the New Indian Express.
However, Roja allegedly began harassing Veda Shree for additional dowry. Following this, Roja, then Daripalli came out as a trans woman and underwent gender reassignment surgery to become a woman. Facing marital discord, Roja and Veda then started living separately for some years. Veda, employed as a private school teacher, took custody of their daughter.
Veda Faced Harassment from Roja Over Her Demands for Child Support and Devised Plan to Kill Her
As pointed out by NDTV, Roja then subsequently started "harassing" the woman, who worked as an accountant in a private school, police said. The transgender person used to go to the woman's workplace and create "nuisance" because the woman had been seeking maintenance from the estranged husband for her child and herself, the official said.
The school management removed the woman from her job over the "nuisance." Angered over it, Veda decided to kill her estranged husband, police said. It is learnt that while living apart, she started living with a man named Ramesh from Siddipet. She, along with Ramesh, devised a plan to eliminate Roja.
A police investigation revealed that Ramesh and one other associate offered alcohol to Roja before smothering her to death with pillows in her sleep. Later, she was murdered but the accused tried to pass it off as a natural death case. However, the cops caught on to their lies and arrested them. During the investigation, Veda reportedly confessed to her crimes, the sources said.
