Epaper
HYDERABAD: The body of an Indian girl student, who was murdered in Britain, is likely to be brought to her home town of Vijayawada by Wednesday, the family said here on Sunday.
V.S. Jyothirmayee, 23, a postgraduate student in public health at Wolverhampton University, was found murdered in her apartment on the outskirts of Birmingham May 6.
Her family members said they received the information that the body would be flown in May 21. They said the last rites would be performed the same day.
N. Nagraju Kumar, 24, who was sharing the apartment with her, was found in an injured condition. Two days later, West Midlands police arrested Kumar on charges of murder. He allegedly inflicted injuries on himself to mislead the police.
The cause of the murder, however, remains a mystery with the girl’s family denying that she had an affair with Kumar.
Two autopsies were conducted on her body as part of the investigations into the murder.
The police would hand over the body to Indian high commission in a day or two. The Andhra Pradesh government has already announced that it would bear the expenses of bringing the body to India.
European Telugu Association officials informed Jyothirmayee’s father N. Saibabu that they would make the necessary arrangements to send the body to India.
Saibabu, his wife and their younger daughter last week dropped their plans to travel to Birmingham. The officials had arranged passports for them in a few hours and the state government offered to pay for their travel.
“We changed our plans because the body is likely to be brought here sooner than what was earlier anticipated,” Saibabu told newsmen in Vijayawada.
The family was earlier informed that it might take four to six weeks to send Jyothirmayee’s body to India.
Meanwhile, three representatives of Wolverhampton University visited Vijayawada Friday and met the parents of the girl to offer condolences.
They handed over to the family a book containing condolence messages from Vice-Chancellor Caroline Gipps, industrialist Lord Swraj Paul and students and photographs of memorial ceremony held at the campus May 9.
“She was hard working and model international student. Her tutors and students remember her as a bight student who gave a lot to the university,” said Ashar Ehsan, director of marketing and communications with the university.
The university authorities said they would refund the fee. Saibabu, a former film distributor, had sent his daughter to Britain for higher studies in September last year. He spent Rs.600,000 towards the fee for a post-graduate master’s course in public health.
Ehsan, who with university representatives would again come back to attend Jyothirmayee’s funeral, said the university was shocked and saddened by the tragic incident. “We are cooperating with the police in the investigations,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nagraju Kumar’s father N. Shivanarayana has left for Britain to hire legal assistance for his son, who is currently in the custody of West Midlands police. He believes that his son was innocent. He claimed to have received a phone call from Kumar’s friends that some unidentified people attacked him and Jyothirmayee.
Kumar, hailing from Hyderabad, was a post-graduate student of physiotherapy in the same university, was sharing the apartment with Jyothirmayee and another Telugu student, Kiran.