Hyderabad: As the gory details of the alleged rape and murder of a 27-year-old Hyderabad veterinarian started pouring out, social media users from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana began demanding “Warangal-style” justice for the victim.
The reference was to a December 2008 case where two engineering students of Warangal were attacked with acid over a suspected case of spurned love. The three suspects were subsequently gunned down in an encounter with police.
While police claimed they shot in self-defence, it is widely believed that the encounter was staged to quell the public outrage triggered by the crime. Now in Telangana, Warangal was then a part of united Andhra Pradesh led by the late Congress leader Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
Despite the criticism of human rights activists and the opposition, the state administration had reportedly refused to condemn the killings.
Angry social media users cited the encounter to claim YSR’s rule was marked by a sense of security among women.
Man of Justice @SuperGops –
YSR govt was corrupt but
didnt let women down…when acid attack victim died…attackers were killed in “encounter”…we knew the truth but
knew it was justice…lets see what “anna” kcr govt does….
Madhu@acc_madhu
@KTRTRS@TelanganaCMO@trsharish
In 2008 YS Rajashekar Reddy ordered to encounter 3 acid attackers in United Andhra. That set a example to other culprits. Some times we have to take a step to give strong warning.
NiShAnTh ReDdE @NishanthReddyGG
What a horrifying incident… Respecting Girls is part of our culture let’s not loose it After the “#acid_attack_accused_encounter” as long as #CMYSR lived, there were no attacks on girls.
Incidentally, V.C. Sajjanar, who is now the commissioner for Cyberabad, where the incident occurred, was then the superintendent of police of Warangal district and was hailed as a hero by several citizens “for quickly eliminating the culprits and offering solace to the grieving parents”.
Also read: After Hyderabad veterinarian, another woman’s body found charred in same locality
How veterinarian was killed
Four people have been arrested for the alleged rape and murder of the veterinarian, whose body was found charred beyond recognition Thursday. She was allegedly burnt after being raped and suffocated.
Burning a corpse is a tactic criminals employ to destroy evidence — besides leaving the victim unrecognisable, fire is known to degrade DNA.
According to reports, a positive identification on the Hyderabad victim was only possible because of a Ganesha pendant she had around her neck.
Late on Friday evening, Sajjanar presented the preliminary results of the police investigation and showed photos of the four suspects, masked — Mohammed alias Arif, Gollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Ch Chennakesavulu, all in their twenties and natives of Maktal in south Telangana.
On Wednesday, the veterinarian had reportedly parked her two-wheeler at the Outer Ring Road toll plaza near Shamshabad, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, before taking a shared cab onwards for a hospital appointment. She was allegedly abducted and raped when she returned to the toll plaza after 9 pm to ride the two-wheeler back home.
According to Sajjanar, the four planned the rape between the time the veterinarian left her scooty at the toll plaza and returned. The four were allegedly under the influence and deflated one of the tyres while the doctor was away.
“The scooty’s rear tyre was deflated by the accused and they approached the victim on the pretext of helping her,” said Sajjanar.
This is when the veterinarian is believed to have called her younger sister and expressed fear for her safety.
Around this time, Sajjanar said, while one of the men “took the scooty away to ‘get it repaired’, others seized” the veterinarian. “The rape was committed by the four men in a walled compound near the toll plaza,” Sajjanar said.
“She died as the accused forcefully closed her mouth and nose, suffocating her to death. They later took the body to an underpass, a few kilometres away, doused the body with petrol, and set it on fire.”
“The case has been referred to a fast-track court. We’ll ensure they are awarded the deserved punishment soon,” he added.
The commissioner also promised an investigation into allegations “of an indifferent reception at the police station to the missing complaint filed by the veterinarian’s family after her phone was switched off”.
‘Fired in self-defence’
One of the two victims of the 2008 acid attack, Swapnika, died of her injuries.
Like the Cyberabad case, Warangal police, too, claimed to have cracked the 2008 case within 48 hours.
Prime suspect Srinivasa Rao, who was allegedly spurned by one of the women, and his associates P. Harikrishna and B. Sanjay — all in their 20s — were soon arrested.
They were killed hours later on the outskirts of Warangal, where they had allegedly hidden the motorbike and acid bottle used in their crime.
Sajjanar told reporters at the time that police acted in self-defence “as the accused suddenly took out a country-made weapon and tried to open fire and also threw acid on policemen”.
However, the encounter theory gained wide currency. Encounter is a popular term in Telugu states, used mostly to refer to armed confrontations between Naxalites and police forces, some of them allegedly plotted. Rare now, encounters were regular affairs in Andhra Pradesh during the eighties, nineties and even in some part of the last decade.
The gruesome death of the veterinarian has once again triggered much outrage, especially in light of the fact that it happened in a place considered relatively safe for women.
Speaking to the media, the veterinarian’s father said he wanted the killers hanged. “My fatherly appeal to all lawyers is not to defend these criminals,” he added.
Fuelling the outrage are politician remarks seeking to blame the victim and communalising the incident.
Telangana home minister Md Mahmood Ali faced public backlash for suggesting the victim should have dialled 100 instead of calling her sister. “It is unfortunate that she called her sister and not ‘100’. had she called ‘100’ she could have been saved,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, Telangana’s lone BJP MLA Raja Singh sought to communalise the crime by pointing to the religion of one of the suspects, a Muslim.
Also read: Jwala Gutta: For Telangana rape-murder blame our society, not just police or government