Hyderabad: Meet Maina Ramulu, a possible local version of notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Arrested here on Tuesday by the Hyderabad Police Task Force and the Rachakonda Police, the 45-year-old Ramulu’s story, as narrated by the police, is dotted with deceit, vengeance and cold-blooded murder.
Ramulu was married at the age of 21, only to be ditched by his wife, who eloped with another man soon after their wedding. Since 2003, the stone cutter by profession has been on an alleged killing spree, killing 18 women so far, all out of hatred towards his wife.
He was nabbed in 2011, by which time he had murdered nine women and was sentenced to life imprisonment. While serving time in Cherlapally Central Prison, Ramulu convinced authorities to get him admitted in the Erragadda Government Mental Health Hospital. A few days later, he escaped from the hospital.
He then committed five murders in Bowenpally, Chandanagar and Dundigal and was arrested by the Bowenpally police in May 2013, but was released from jail in 2018 after an appeal petition in the court, police said. He killed two more women in Shamirpet and Patancheru, was arrested and sent to the judicial custody, when he was again released in July 2020, according to the police.
Most of the women were ‘picked up’ from toddy compounds, where he drank with them, then took them to isolated spots, where he had sex with them or raped them before killing them either by strangulation or by bludgeoning them to death with boulders. Many of the bodies were found either mutilated or charred partially.
A native of Aarutla village of Sangareddy and a resident of Borabanda in Hyderabad, Ramulu’s last two murders, at Mulugu in Siddipet and Ghatkesar in Rachakonda, saw the police verifying CCTV footage from over 500 cameras before confirming that the suspect was Ramulu.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said Ramulu had got habituated to luring and murdering women before stealing their jewelry.
“When he was 21, his parents got him married to a woman from his village, but she eloped with another person soon. Since then, he bore a grudge against women and started killing them,” police said.
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