TIRUPATI: A man has been arrested for killing his wife and dumping her body in a lake. The arrested person has been identified as Tirupati Venkatapuram native Venugopal (30), a software engineer. The incident came to light five months after he committed the crime.

Police said that Venugopal's wife Padma had returned to the house of her parents after an altercation with Venugopal. Later, Venugopal brought her home and thrashed her to death before dumping the body in the lake. Since then, he had been misleading his in-laws that Padma was with him in Hyderabad. As she did not even speak to them over the phone for nearly five months, Padma's parents grew suspicious and lodged a missing complaint with the police.

During the interrogation, Venugopal confessed to killing Padma soon after bringing her back. Police investigations revealed that after bringing Padma to his house, Venugopal thrashed her with a stick, resulting in her death.

The incident happened in the presence of Venugopal's parents and a friend. They later tied the body and stuffed it into a large suitcase. Venugopal then carried the suitcase to the lake, dumped it there and left Tirupati with his parents.

Police have recovered Padma's corpse from the lake in Venkatapuram.