Hyderabad/Vijayawada, June 30: A Vijayawada sessions court today remanded Yelchuri Manohar, who killed his classmate on June 21 after she spurned his advances, in police custody for 15 days.

The 26-year-old student of Vijayawada’s Sarada College had pounced on MCA student Ravuri Srilakshmi, 24, inside an examination hall last week and hacked her to death before calmly walking out of the college. Manohar killed her with a bamboo cutter but police are yet to locate the weapon even though he says he left it at the scene of crime.

Manohar was brought back to Vijayawada last night amid tight security after surrendering to police on Monday evening in Chennai, where he had hidden for nearly a week after the murder. Police had to lathicharge angry parents and members of women groups and social clubs who waylaid vehicles bringing the killer into town and stoned them.

“We will punish him (Manohar). Hand him over to us,” screamed the crowd that had been waiting near the police commissioner’s office since last evening to give the student a “fitting” welcome. A crowd also greeted Manohar with angry slogans and abuses in the sessions court today.

When judge Sugandhar Rao asked him how he had become so heartless, Manohar said: “I went to college to terrorise her (Srilakshmi). But when she died I did not know what to do and fled.”

Asked how he became a killer, the 26-year-old said: “I am not a killer. I only took revenge.” Manohar faces nine cases of rowdyism in Ongole and is also alleged to have killed his sister in a fit of rage. However, the case was hushed up as a suicide.

Vijayawada police commissioner Krishna Prasad has said the cases will be reviewed in the light of his apparent mental disorder. Reports of the murder led to such a public explosion of anger that people chased police vehicles bringing Manohar into Vijayawada in their own cars, scooters and even tractors.