Saidabad rape: Sordid saga ends in culprit’s suicide

Hyderabad: What began last Thursday as a gruesome case of an innocent six-year-old girl child being sexually violated and strangled to death, ended exactly a week later, with a mangled body on the railway tracks indicating closure of sorts for the victim’s family. From around 10 am, phones buzzed nonstop and social media went into […]

Hyderabad: What began last Thursday as a gruesome case of an innocent six-year-old girl child being sexually violated and strangled to death, ended exactly a week later, with a mangled body on the railway tracks indicating closure of sorts for the victim’s family.

From around 10 am, phones buzzed nonstop and social media went into a frenzied mode as news began trickling in of the body, suspected to be that of Raju, being found.

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Near the spot meanwhile, railway keymen E Kumar and Sarangapani were busy telling the media how they had their doubts the moment they saw the body, that ‘this could be Raju’, as they had seen his pictures in the media.

Sarangapani, who said they had first alerted their higher-ups, said Railway officials asked them to alert the police, after which they called Dial 100 around 9.50 am, remembering that there was this ‘talk of a reward’. On the other hand, Warangal Police Commissioner Tarun Joshi said railway employees checking the track were the eye-witnesses to the incident and that it was a clear case of suicide.

“They saw him walking on the track and tried to get him out of the tracks by asking him. He started to run, by which time the Konark Express to Hyderabad hit him. He died on the spot,” he said.

Stating that Raju had relatives in Warangal and that he had visited Hanamkonda and Warangal earlier too, Joshi said him reaching Warangal was a possibility, which was why the police were on the alert.

It was just two days ago that the Hyderabad City Police announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for any info on the whereabouts of Raju, while on Wednesday, they released more photographs of him, some of them simulated to show how he could change his appearance deceptively, and also photos of his last sighting, wearing a mask. The name Mounika, they said, was tattooed twice on his arms.

When seen again on Thursday, however, the face was mangled beyond recognition. The tattoos apparently connected Raju to his mangled remains.

Warangal: The cremation of Pallakonda Raju was held at Pothana cremation ground in Warangal at around 9 pm on Thursday with his mother Veeramma lighting the pyre. Police had made arrangements for the last rites.

Cops spent sleepless nights tracking Raju: Anjani

Hyderabad: City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said all the officers of the Hyderabad City Police had spent sleepless nights in their efforts to track Pallakonda Raju, the suspect in the Saidabad case.

“Right from home guards to senior police officials, the entire Hyderabad police has been working hard. The police units of other cities and districts in the State also coordinated with us,” he said.

On Thursday morning, the City Police provided all details of Raju to the Warangal Police for confirmation of his identity. “We again reconfirmed his identity with the help of tattoo marks and showed the body to his family members too,” he said.

In last three days, all the senior officials were working relentlessly. “After the offence was reported, we scanned the entire city and later expanded our operations across the State depending upon the technical leads provided by the IT cell,” he said, adding that various government departments and agencies had extended full cooperation.

Raju cremated in Warangal

The autopsy was reportedly completed by 7.30 pm and the relatives were handed over the body at around 8.30 pm by the Government Railway Police (GRP) at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital (MGMH). Though the family members insisted on taking the body to their native place, the police asked them to conduct the last rites in Warangal itself, citing various reasons.

When an ambulance carrying Raju’s body reached the hospital morgue at around 1.45 pm, a person hurled his footwear on the vehicle to vent his anger over Raju for his heinous crime. Later, the police closed the gate near the mortuary to restrict public movement.

As the police informed the relatives about Raju’s death, his paternal brothers-in-law Kedari Suresh and Mahesh reached MGMH around 4 pm, while his wife Mounika, mother Veeramma and sister Anitha too arrived at the hospital around 7 pm.

Both were directly taken to the hospital in a police vehicle even as the media was waiting. Attempts by the media to speak to them were ‘thwarted’ by the police.

ACP Warangal Kalakota Giri Kumar said Malakpet ACP Venkata Ramana, the designated Investigating Officer (IO) of the rape and murder case, and GRP Inspector Rammurthy and his team had come to the MGMH to oversee the autopsy procedure.

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