Hyderabad: The recent honour killing of a Dalit youth by his own father-in-law has shocked the community as the daughter and wife of the youth was five-months pregnant with him.
Taking action against the hate crime, Investigating officers of Miryalaguda police station arrested seven people, including two men acquitted in the murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya for carrying out the murder if Perumalla Pranay a Dalit Christian man by caste.
The contract killer Subash Sharma accompanied with his aide both caught on Hospital’s CCTV camera can be seen carrying out the cold murder of Pranay in front of his wife was arrested in Bihar.
The killer will be brought to Hyderabad on prison transit warrant said the police.
The following are the seven accused in the murder of Pranay- T Maruthi Rao also father-in-law of Pranay (A1), Subash Sharma (A2), a native of Samasthipur in Bihar, Asghar Ali (A3), Mohammed Abdul Bari (A4), Abdul Kareem (A5), transport operator and local Congress leader, T Shravan (A6) brother of Maruthi Rao, and Samudrala Shiva (A7), driver of Maruthi Rao.
The Nalgonda Superintendent of Police A V Ranganath addressing a press conference on Tuesday said, “Maruthi Rao came in contact with Abdul Bari through Kareem. Maruthi and Kareem knew each other since 2011 when they first came in contact with each other regarding a land issue.”
“Kareem informed Bari and Asghar Ali of the murder plot. In July first week, all of them met Maruthi Rao in Miryalguda in Autonagar. Initially, Asghar Ali and Bari demanded Rs 2.5 crore. But the deal was finally struck for Rs 1 crore. They demanded an advance of Rs 50 lakh, but were given Rs 15 lakh. The advance was handed over by Kareem to Bari near Ramoji Film City. Bari took Rs 8 lakh cash out of it, Asghar received Rs 6 lakh cash and Kareem got the remaining Rs 1 lakh. This happened on July 9th and 10th,” the SP said.
“On August 9, they conducted a recce. When Pranay, his brother and Amrutha came to the beauty parlour, Asghar Ali, Bari and Subash Sharma were present. They couldn’t identify who Pranay was among the two brothers and put off their murder plan,” Ranganath added.
While the newly married couple hosted their wedding reception on August 17, the Police had given them protection by posting an SI and four constables at the event.
Nothing suspicious happened during the event but Maruthi Rao arrived in Hyderabad and hatched a plan to kill Pranay.
Subhash the assassin then visited Pranay’s house and asked his father if their car was up for hiring on August 22.
“He spoke in Hindi leading to Balaswamy getting suspicious. The killers then hatched another plan, and on September 1, they wanted to kidnap Amrutha and later kill Pranay. Asghar had arranged four people from Hyderabad. However, they were drunk and Asghar thought they can’t execute the murder and abandoned the plan,” the SP said.
And finally, they executed their plan on September 14. “The weapon was arranged by Asghar Ali. Subash Sharma kept shifting his location by staying in different lodges in Nalgonda, Chityal and Hyderabad. Asghar was the man on the field giving directions to Subash Sharma. On September 14, Asghar was present at the hospital. After the murder, Asghar called up Bari and told them Pranay had been killed. He then asked Bari to arrange the remaining amount,” said Ranganath.
Soon after the murder, Subash Sharma immediately left for Bengaluru and then moved to Patna.
“The role of Maruthi Rao’s brother Sravan and driver Siva is less compared to that of the five other accused. Sravan knew about the plot. Siva helped to transport the killers. We have booked cases under IPC 302 (murder) and SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act against the accused,” the SP said.