Iyyangari Venkata Sai Krishna, an MBA graduate-turned-priest, had been in a relationship with Kuruganti Apsara since early 2023, despite already being married and having a daughter. According to police, he killed Apsara after she began insisting he fulfil his promise to marry her.
Published Mar 28, 2025 | 5:22 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 28, 2025 | 5:22 PM
Synopsis: A Telangana court has sentenced 36-year-old priest Iyyangari Venkata Sai Krishna to life imprisonment and fined him ₹10 lakh for the 2023 murder of aspiring actor Kuruganti Apsara, with whom he had an extramarital affair. Krishna, who initially posed as Apsara’s uncle to mislead police, confessed to killing her after she pressured him to marry her.
A 36-year-old priest in Telangana has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2023 murder of an aspiring actor with whom he was in an extramarital relationship.
A local court on Thursday, 27 March, convicted Iyyangari Venkata Sai Krishna for the killing of 30-year-old Kuruganti Apsara. He was also fined ₹10 lakh — ₹9.75 lakh as compensation for the victim’s family, and ₹25,000 towards court charges.
Sai Krishna, an MBA graduate-turned-priest, had been in a relationship with Apsara since early 2023, despite already being married and having a daughter. According to police, he killed Apsara after she began insisting he fulfil his promise to marry her.
Originally from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Apsara had moved with her family to the Saroornagar neighbourhood of Hyderabad in April 2022. She met Krishna at a local temple frequented by her mother, where their relationship began.
Krishna, currently held at Cherlapally Jail, was also revealed to have visited temples in Gujarat with Apsara and their friends during the course of their relationship.
On 3 June 2023, under the pretext of taking her to Coimbatore, Krishna picked Apsara up from her home around 8.15 pm and took her to Narkhoda village in Shamshabad. As she began feeling unwell and sleepy, he drove her to his cow shelter in Sultanpura.
According to police, Krishna first attempted to smother Apsara using a tarpaulin car cover. When she resisted, he repeatedly struck her head with a stone he had brought with him in advance.
He kept the body in his car for two days before disposing of it in a manhole behind the Sub-Registrar Office in Saroornagar.
On the morning of 6 June, he covered the manhole with two truckloads of red soil and later sealed it with cement concrete to mask the smell. He also burned her hand bag and luggage and washed his car to destroy evidence.
Krishna later accompanied Apsara’s mother to file a missing person complaint at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Police Station, falsely claiming Apsara – whom he referred to as his niece – had gone missing from the Shamshabad bus stand.
Inconsistencies in his account and CCTV footage led police to suspect foul play. Krishna was brought in for questioning on 9 June, during which he confessed to the murder.
He also told police that Apsara had been pregnant with his child and had an abortion in March.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
