Girl student stabbed to death in AP

Amaravati, August 15

A third-year engineering student was stabbed to death in broad daylight by an unidentified assailant on the main road in Guntur city of Andhra Pradesh, causing a widespread uproar.

State Home Minister M Sucharita rushed to the Government General Hospital, where the girl’s body was taken, and expressed shock over the incident.

TDP general secretary and MLC Nara Lokesh deplored that the Dalit student’s murder took place around the time when Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, in his Independence Day address, was waxing eloquent about women safety under his rule.

Police launched a manhunt to nab the culprit while efforts were on to unlock her mobile phone for possible clues, police sources said.

According to the police, the student was walking on the Kakani Road when a youth approached her on his bike. He asked her to get on the bike, to which she refused and an altercation followed.

“The assailant then took out a knife and stabbed her repeatedly on the neck and the stomach and fled the scene. The locals rushed to the spot and immediately removed the profusely bleeding girl to hospital,” a police official said.

She, however, died at the GGH.

Guntur Urban Superintendent of Police Arif Hafeez visited the scene of offence to take stock of the situation.

The Home Minister told reporters at the GGH that police have gathered some clues about the assailant and hope he would be nabbed soon.

“Despite having tough laws… how to punish such psychopaths? Only capital punishment seems appropriate for such monsters,” the Home Minister remarked.

She said the victim’s parents and friends were also being questioned for possible clues.

Lokesh, meanwhile, demanded that the culprit be brought to book immediately.

“The Jagan government has been trumpeting a lot about the (non-existent) Disha Act. In the past two and a half years, in not one case of atrocities against women has any justice been done,” the MLC said. — PTI