Hyderabad, May 11: A police constable opened fire at his woman colleague before shooting himself with his service weapon at Kukatpally police station in the early hours of Monday.
While the woman, 23-year-old Lalitha, who was shot in the head, died while undergoing treatment, the constable V Srinivas is battling for life.
Preliminary investigations revealed it was a fall-out of the woman’s refusal to marry the accused.
According to Cyberabad police, it was around 4 a.m when V Srinivas went to the first floor of the police station along with his .303 rifle and shot at Lalitha, his girlfriend, who was sleeping in the rest room.
He then shot himself and suffered a bullet injury on his ribs. Panicked on hearing the gunshots, other policemen rushed to the first floor and found them lying in a pool of blood.
They were immediately shifted to a corporate hospital where Lalitha succumbed.
“Srinivas was on sentry duty from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. while Lalitha was in the police station as an escort for a woman suspect. After completing his duty, Srinivas went to the first floor of the police station and opened fire at Lalitha. Subsequently, using the same gun he attempted to kill himself,” Kukatpally inspector K Srinivas Rao told Express. Srinivas’ condition is stated to be serious.
Police said it was premeditated attack as Srinivas had scribbled a ‘suicide note’. “Srinivas mentioned in the diary that he was having an affair with Lalitha. But she was citing one reason or the other whenever Srinivas putforth a marriage proposal.”
“Srinivas also went on to say that he was deeply annoyed when he came to know that Lalitha was allegedly having affair with someone else,” the inspector said.
The suicide note also said that he had decided to kill her and later commit suicide as he felt cheated and let down by her. Srinivas hails from Vikarabad in Rangareddy district while Lalitha hails from Annavaram.
On knowing about the incident, relatives of Srinivas came to Apollo Hospital and expressed shock over the turn of events.
“At no point Srinivas ever gave impression that he was having an affair with her. Had we known it, we could have done something to avoid this situation,” Ramesh, Srinivas’s relative said.
–Agenciea