Unidentified persons brutally murdered a youth in Pothavaram village at Nallajarla Mandal, West Godavari district on Tuesday. They had apparently kidnapped the victim who was identified as Vamshi an engineering student and demanded Rs 50 lakh ransom from the family. The worried parents called the police and shortly afterward he was found brutally murdered and the assailants fled from there.

Konakalla Vamsi was a final year student studying in engineering college at Kolkata. Since it was the COVID pandemic he was at home for the past three months On Tuesday night he left home around 8 pm in the night. Shortly after that, Vamsi's father Sreenu got a call. The kidnappers informed him that his son had been kidnapped and demanded that they pay Rs 50 lakh as ransom for his release. Srinu pleaded that he could not afford to give so much. The kidnappers told him to get whatever he could afford and come to the outskirts of the village and pay them the money.

Srinu finally went to the village outskirts with the cash that he could collect but they were not to be seen. Disappointed he went back and meanwhile, few farmers who found Vamsi's body near the Sugar factory on Wednesday morning called the police. Vamsi had bruises on his face and it looked like he was strangled to death.

Police were called in and they sent the body for postmortem. What was baffling was that if Vamsi was kidnapped for money, why did the kidnappers kill him without taking the money. Police are examining the place and tracing call records of the victim and the cell record from the towers located where the body was found. They are also verifying the numbers from whom the victim’s father had got the ransom calls.

Further details are awaited…