Telangana Man Held in Killing of a Woman Laborer Is Accused of Murdering Women Since 2005
Medak police said Ketawat Gopal confessed to strangling Megavath Bhujali, 52, for 400 rupees. One report of the briefing says he admitted killings in five districts.
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Megavath Bhujali, 52, a daily-wage laborer from Jayaram Thanda in Musapet village, Narsapur mandal, in Telangana's Medak district, went missing on March 25, 2025, and her family reported it to the police. A woman's decomposed body was later found in brush beside the Medak road in Narsapur, and police identified it as hers. Security camera footage showed a man taking her away in an auto-rickshaw near a toddy shop.
On Friday, April 11, Medak Superintendent of Police Uday Kumar Reddy announced at Narsapur police station that the man had been caught. He was Ketawat Gopal, also known as Dappu Gopal, 54, of Mahabubnagar district, a man with a long police record whose photograph matched the man in the footage, police said. According to the superintendent, Gopal confessed. As Namasthe Telangana reported the briefing, he had met Bhujali at a toddy compound, promised her work for 1,000 rupees, taken her by auto-rickshaw to brush beside a dumping yard near Narsapur, strangled her and taken the 400 rupees she was carrying. He was sent to judicial remand.
ETV Bharat's report of the same briefing went much further. It said police accused Gopal of killing at least 10 women across five districts of Telangana, and that during interrogation he confessed to a series of murders between 2005 and 2023 in Mahabubnagar, Sangareddy, Vikarabad, Kamareddy and Medak districts. Police said he picked out women, mostly laborers, at toddy shops and laborers' gathering spots, got them drunk and took them to secluded places, where he allegedly raped and killed them and took their jewelry and cash. "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.
According to ETV Bharat, Gopal had already served 10 years in prison for a 2008 murder at Bommaraspet in Vikarabad district, and 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. Namasthe Telangana reported that he had gone to jail over a 2023 rape case in the Gummadidala police station area and had recently been released when he met Bhujali. Police said they were looking into whether he was involved in other unsolved cases. The other women were not named.
No police release could be opened. This account rests on two reports of the superintendent's April 11, 2025 press conference: Namasthe Telangana's, in Telugu, published that evening, and ETV Bharat's, in English, the next day. Only ETV Bharat reports confessions to other murders and the figure of at least 10 women; Namasthe Telangana says only that Gopal had several earlier cases. The two also differ on Bhujali's death. ETV Bharat says her body was found on March 28 in a forest near a dhaba on the Medak road and that she was strangled with her saree; Namasthe Telangana says it was found on April 3 in brush by the dumping yard and that she was strangled with her blouse. They spell the accused's surname Ketawat and Kethavath, and his home tanda Ayyagaripalli and Ayyavaripalli.