On Friday, April 11, 2025, the superintendent of police for Medak district in Telangana, Uday Kumar Reddy, called reporters to the police station at Narsapur. With him were Venkat Reddy, the deputy superintendent for Thupran, Circle Inspector John Reddy and Sub-Inspector Lingam. The superintendent announced that the death of a 52-year-old laborer named Megavath Bhujali, whose decomposed body had been found in brush outside the town, had been solved. The man under arrest was Ketawat Gopal, 54, known as Dappu Gopal, from a tanda (a hamlet) in Mahabubnagar district. Police described him as a habitual offender. According to the superintendent, Gopal had confessed to killing Bhujali for the 400 rupees she was carrying.
What the police said about Gopal's past is where the reports of that press conference part ways. One report, in Namasthe Telangana, a Telugu daily, said only that he had several earlier cases against him and had recently come out of jail. ETV Bharat, in both its English and its Telugu editions, went further. It reported that police accused Gopal of killing at least 10 women across five districts of Telangana, and that under interrogation he had confessed to a series of murders between 2005 and 2023. None of those women has been named in any report, and no court has ruled on any of those allegations.
Gopal has not been tried for Bhujali's death. He is accused, not convicted.
Megavath Bhujali was 52 years old. She lived in Jayaram Thanda, a settlement in Musapet village in Narsapur mandal, Medak district, and she worked as a daily-wage laborer. ETV Bharat's Telugu report says she went out on March 25, 2025, looking for labor work, and did not come home. Her family reported her missing to the Narsapur police.
That is most of what the published record says about her. The reports do not give the names of her husband or children, how long she had lived in Jayaram Thanda, or what kind of work she usually did. Her surname, Megavath, is given by Namasthe Telangana; the ETV Bharat reports call her only Bhujali. She was one of many women in the district who find day work by going to the places where laborers gather and wait to be hired, and police said those were the places where the man who killed her looked for women.
After the missing-person report, police in Narsapur went through the security camera footage in the town. According to all three reports, cameras near a toddy shop showed Bhujali getting into an auto-rickshaw with a man. Toddy, a fermented palm drink, is sold in shops and compounds across rural Telangana, and both Telugu reports describe the place as a kallu shop or kallu compound, kallu being the Telugu word for toddy. At that point the man in the footage was unidentified.
The reports disagree about when and exactly where her body was found.
ETV Bharat, in English and in Telugu, says police traced her movements to a forest area opposite a dhaba, a roadside eating place, on the Medak road in Narsapur, and that her decomposed body was found there on March 28, three days after she went missing.
Namasthe Telangana gives a different date and place. It says that on April 3 police received information that the decomposed body of a woman was lying in bushes at a dumping yard on the Medak road, inside Narsapur municipality. Officers went to the spot, examined the body and identified it as Bhujali's.
Both accounts put the body beside the Medak road on the edge of Narsapur, in scrub or forest land. They differ by six days on the date and on whether the landmark was a dhaba or a dumping yard. No police statement has been published that settles which is right. Nor have the findings of a post-mortem examination been reported; the account of how she died comes from what police said Gopal told them.
When police looked into the man seen with Bhujali, they found, in the words of ETV Bharat's Telugu report, that he was an old offender. Namasthe Telangana says the man in the footage matched a photograph of Ketawat Gopal, a known criminal from a tanda in Mahabubnagar district. The superintendent's office set up special teams to find him.
The two Telugu reports describe the arrest a little differently. Namasthe Telangana says Gopal was caught about a week after the teams were formed, taken into custody and questioned, and that he admitted the crime. ETV Bharat says that while police were searching for him, he was spotted in Narsapur on Friday, April 11, in what police called suspicious circumstances, and was detained and questioned. In ETV Bharat's English report, he was "nabbed from Narsapur on Friday." The press conference was held the same day.
The reports give his name in different spellings. ETV Bharat's English edition writes Ketawat Gopal; its Telugu edition and Namasthe Telangana write the surname in Telugu script in forms usually transliterated Kethavath or Ketavath. His home is given as Ayyagaripalli Thanda by ETV Bharat and as Ayyavaripalli Thanda by Namasthe Telangana. All agree that it is in Mahabubnagar district and that he was 54. ETV Bharat gives his alias, Dappu Gopal. No report explains how he came by it, and nothing has been reported about his family, his schooling, his work or his life before his first recorded case.
None of Gopal's own words has been published. What exists are three news accounts of what the superintendent said Gopal told investigators. They agree on the outline: he met Bhujali at a toddy shop, got her to drink, took her to an isolated spot outside Narsapur, strangled her with her own clothing and took the 400 rupees she had with her. They differ on details.
According to Namasthe Telangana, Gopal had come out of jail about a week before he met Bhujali at the toddy compound. He told her there was coolie work, day labor, and that he would pay her 1,000 rupees for it. He took her by auto-rickshaw to bushes beside the dumping yard near Narsapur municipality, wound her blouse around her throat and strangled her, and took the 400 rupees she had.
According to ETV Bharat's Telugu report, Gopal used talk of money to take her into the forest, made her drink alcohol and strangled her with her own saree, then took the 400 rupees and fled. The English report from the same organization says Gopal "admitted to intoxicating Bhujali, strangling her with her saree, and robbing her of ₹400 before fleeing the spot."
So one account says he strangled her with her saree and the other says her blouse. One says the promise was work at 1,000 rupees; the other speaks more generally of money. These are differences in how reporters wrote up the same briefing, and there is no official text to check them against. No report says whether Bhujali was sexually assaulted, and none says whether jewelry was taken from her.
After questioning, Gopal was produced in court and sent to judicial remand, Namasthe Telangana reported, meaning a magistrate ordered him held in jail custody while the investigation continued.
The confession police described was made to police officers while Gopal was in custody. Indian evidence law has long treated such statements with suspicion. According to PRS Legislative Research's summary of the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, which Parliament passed in December 2023 to replace the Indian Evidence Act, "any confession made to a police officer is inadmissible," and "confessions made in police custody are also inadmissible, unless recorded by a Magistrate." The bill kept the older rule that information given by an accused in custody may be admitted if it "distinctly relates to the fact discovered," such as the place where a body or stolen property is found.
That matters for this case. Unless prosecutors can prove Bhujali's death through other evidence, such as the camera footage, witnesses at the toddy shop, the auto-rickshaw driver, forensic findings or a statement recorded before a magistrate, what Gopal told the police at Narsapur cannot by itself convict him. None of the reports says what other evidence police had beyond the footage and the photograph match. The same limit applies with more force to the other killings police are reported to attribute to him, for which no woman has been named in public.
The account of Gopal's earlier record comes almost entirely from ETV Bharat, which published it in English and in Telugu on April 12, 2025. The two versions overlap but are not identical.
The English report says Gopal "had previously served 10 years in prison for a murder he had committed at Bommaraspet in Vikarabad district in 2008," and that cases had been registered against him in Nawabpet in 2018 and in Narsapur mandal in 2023, as well as in Gummadidala, Sadashivanagar, Kamareddy and Tadwai.
The Telugu report adds dates and describes the cases more specifically. It says Gopal committed murders in Mahabubnagar in 2005 and 2008; that he served a ten-year prison sentence in a 2008 murder case at Bommaraspet in Vikarabad district; that he was arrested in murder cases at Nawabpet in 2018 and in Narsapur mandal in 2023; and that, according to the superintendent, he was an accused in murder cases in 2023 in the Gummadidala, Kamareddy, Sadashivanagar and Tadwai areas.
Namasthe Telangana's account of the same briefing describes his past in two sentences: he went to jail in 2023 in a case of raping a woman in the Gummadidala police station area, and "several cases" had been filed against him before. It does not mention murder convictions, the figure of ten women, or a ten-year sentence.
None of the three reports names a victim in any of the earlier cases, says whether the 2008 Bommaraspet victim was a woman, gives the outcome of the 2018 and 2023 cases, or explains how Gopal could have been arrested in several 2023 cases and still have been free in March 2025. Namasthe Telangana's statement that he had come out of jail a week before he met Bhujali is the only explanation offered, and it does not say which case he had been jailed in or whether he was released on bail or at the end of a sentence.
The reported record also leaves gaps in time. A ten-year term for a 2008 killing would run to about 2018, the year of the Nawabpet case. That fits only if he was taken into custody soon after the 2008 killing and served the whole term, and no report says either.
The claim that Gopal is a serial killer rests on ETV Bharat's reporting of the April 11 press conference. The English headline called Gopal a "Serial Killer Linked To 10 Murders Across Telangana," and the report said police accused him of "killing at least 10 women across five districts of Telangana." It said that "during interrogation, Gopal confessed to a series of murders he had committed between 2005 and 2023 in Mahabubnagar, Sangareddy, Vikarabad, Kamareddy and Medak districts." The Telugu edition says police found during their inquiry that he had killed 10 women in Sangareddy, Vikarabad, Kamareddy, Mahabubnagar and Medak districts and had been to jail several times.
Several points limit what that claim can carry.
First, it is reported by one news organization. Namasthe Telangana, which covered the same press conference the evening it took place, does not mention it.
Second, no woman among the ten is named, and no date or place is tied to any death except through the list of police stations where cases were registered. The English report lists seven places (Bommaraspet, Nawabpet, Narsapur mandal, Gummadidala, Sadashivanagar, Kamareddy and Tadwai), and the Telugu report adds killings in Mahabubnagar in 2005 and 2008, one of which may be the Bommaraspet case. Neither report lists ten.
Third, only one earlier case is reported to have ended in a prison sentence. Whether the others were investigated to a conclusion, closed, tried or are still pending is not stated.
Fourth, the reports speak of rape in different terms. The English report says Gopal took women to secluded areas, "where he allegedly raped and murdered them." The Telugu report says only that police suspect he may also have committed rape. Namasthe Telangana mentions a 2023 rape case at Gummadidala but does not connect it to any killing.
Taken together, these points leave the figure of ten women where it began: a police allegation reported by one outlet, not an established count. Gopal is accused of one killing, Bhujali's, in which police say he confessed. Beyond that, he is reported to have served a sentence for one earlier murder, and police are reported to suspect him in others.
What the superintendent described, as ETV Bharat reported it, was a method. Gopal picked out women, mostly laborers, at toddy shops and at the places where laborers gather for work. He struck up conversation, got them to drink and led them to isolated spots, where he killed them and took their cash and jewelry. "His pattern was consistent, he would first gain their trust, make them consume alcohol, and then lead them to isolated locations to commit the crimes," the superintendent was quoted as saying. The ETV Bharat Telugu headline summed it up as "He makes them drink toddy and finishes them off."
The amount of money at stake in the Bhujali case was small. Police said the motive was theft, and the 400 rupees is the only sum named.
According to Namasthe Telangana, Gopal was sent to judicial remand after questioning. ETV Bharat reported that the investigation was ongoing and that police were checking whether Gopal was involved in other unsolved cases in the region.
Then the case went quiet. Namasthe Telangana published no headline about Gopal, Bhujali, a charge sheet, a trial or a verdict between May 2025 and October 2026, and no other Telangana or national outlet is known to have followed the case. The silence does not mean nothing has happened; Indian criminal cases often move through district courts for years without coverage. But the public record ends with the reports of April 11 and 12, 2025, which left Gopal accused and remanded.
Gopal stands accused, and no more than that. He has not been convicted of Megavath Bhujali's death, and, as far as the reporting shows, he has not been charged in court with the death of any of the other women police are reported to suspect him of killing.
As of the April 12, 2025 ETV Bharat reports, Ketawat Gopal was in judicial custody, accused of killing Megavath Bhujali, with the police investigation into other cases still open. No charge sheet, bail, trial date or verdict had been reported.
The following points rest on police statements as reported, or on one source, and have not been tested in court:
That Gopal killed Bhujali. Police say he confessed; he has not been tried, and a confession to police is not admissible on its own.
How she was killed. ETV Bharat says with her saree; Namasthe Telangana says with her blouse.
When and where her body was found. ETV Bharat says March 28, in forest opposite a dhaba on the Medak road; Namasthe Telangana says April 3, in bushes at a dumping yard on the same road.
How he was caught. ETV Bharat says he was spotted in Narsapur on April 11; Namasthe Telangana says special teams caught him about a week after they were formed.
That he killed at least 10 women between 2005 and 2023. Reported only by ETV Bharat; no victims named; not reported by Namasthe Telangana.
That he raped his victims. The English ETV Bharat report says "allegedly"; its Telugu report says police suspect it; no case combining rape and killing is described.
The 2008 Bommaraspet murder and the ten-year sentence. Reported by ETV Bharat in both languages; no court record found; victim not named.
The 2023 Gummadidala case. ETV Bharat's Telugu report calls it a murder case; Namasthe Telangana calls it a rape case for which he went to jail.
His home tanda. Ayyagaripalli Thanda (ETV Bharat) or Ayyavaripalli Thanda (Namasthe Telangana).
2005: First killing police are reported to attribute to Gopal, in Mahabubnagar (ETV Bharat Telugu). No details published.
2008: Murder at Bommaraspet, Vikarabad district, for which Gopal is reported to have served ten years in prison (ETV Bharat). The Telugu report also lists a 2008 killing in Mahabubnagar.
2018: Case registered against Gopal at Nawabpet; the Telugu report says he was arrested in a murder case there.
2023: Cases registered in Narsapur mandal and at Gummadidala, Sadashivanagar, Kamareddy and Tadwai (ETV Bharat). Namasthe Telangana says he went to jail that year in a rape case in the Gummadidala police station area.
About a week before March 25, 2025: Gopal comes out of jail (Namasthe Telangana; date not given).
March 25, 2025: Megavath Bhujali, 52, leaves home in Jayaram Thanda to look for work and goes missing. Her family reports it to the Narsapur police. Camera footage later shows her near a toddy shop, leaving in an auto-rickshaw with a man.
March 28, 2025: Her decomposed body is found in forest opposite a dhaba on the Medak road (ETV Bharat). Namasthe Telangana gives April 3 and a dumping yard on the same road.
Early April 2025: The man in the footage is matched to Gopal's photograph; special teams search for him.
April 11, 2025: Gopal is detained in Narsapur. Superintendent Uday Kumar Reddy announces the arrest and the confession at Narsapur police station. Gopal is sent to judicial remand.
April 12, 2025: ETV Bharat reports that police accuse Gopal of killing at least 10 women in five districts since 2005.
As of the April 12, 2025 reports: Gopal in judicial custody, accused, investigation continuing. No later development reported.