Nearly a month after Gurijala Arpith, 29, was on the run after allegedly strangulating his 23-year-old girlfriend to death in her flat in Jeevan Bima Nagar in the first week of June, the police tracked him down to Whitefield on Tuesday.
The police said Arpith had strangled Akanksha and smothered her with a pillow to confirm her death. He even made a futile attempt to make it look like a case of suicide by trying to hang her with a veil from the ceiling fan. However, unable to execute the plan, he had dumped the body and escaped.
The police, who obtained his ID card and phone from the scene of crime, tried to track him down to Delhi to where he had boarded a train. However, on the way, Arpith got down in Bhopal and went to Assam where he worked with a roadside vendor.
The accused even tried to contact his friends to seek financial help, but he could not get money as he had stopped using his debit card and mobile phone fearing that he will be tracked. The police had kept a tab on his family, workplace, and friends.
After the police got to know of his location, they went to Assam, but the accused had by then returned to Vijayawada from where he came to Whitefield to meet his friend in the hope of getting money.
Arpith told the police that Akanksha was in a relationship with him till they worked in Hyderabad, and after she relocated to Bengaluru, she was in another relationship.
Akanksha had reportedly refused to marry Arpith. Enraged by this, Arpith killed her. The accused has been taken into custody for further investigation.
