Hyderabad, January 09: Who shot faction leader Maddelacheruvu Suri dead? Was it his close confidant Bhanu Kiran or was it someone else?
Even as the police reportedly picked up Bhanu Kiran in Bangalore and named him the prime suspect, investigators probing the sensational murder of the faction leader are now looking at it from the new angle to ascertain whether it was Bhanu indeed who pulled the trigger or was it someone else.
Sources associated with the investigation told Express that though initially,the needle of suspicion had pointed to Bhanu, who was seated behind Suri in the Skoda car and fled the scene soon after the murder, the investigators, with the help of forensic experts, were trying to figure out whether it was Bhanu who shot Suri dead or not.Normally, investigators said, anyone opening fire from a close range would result in the bullet going through the head and exiting which would have had his head smashed. But in Suri’s case, the bullet got lodged in the brain which indicated that he was shot from a distance. In several cases, it has been observed that bullets fired from a distance generally get lodged and do not exit.
Investigators say that if Bhanu wanted to eliminate Suri and escape, he would have done it, much easily and smoothly, within the four walls and made good his escape instead of doing it on the road. ‘’Why would he kill him inside a car, that too on a road in the heart of the city, and then escape? The question here is why would the suspect like to leave eyewitnesses to the crime when he could have executed the killing in his apartment or any other isolated place?’’ the sleuths wondered, adding that Bhanu had literally become Suri’s shadow, staying in the same place as the faction warlord. ‘’Had he surrendered soon after, then there would have been no doubts,’’ they said.
It is, however, unclear whether Suri’s car driver told the police that it was Bhanu who fired the shots. Investigators say that even if the driver said that it was Bhanu who shot Suri, there is a possibility of he either being hand-in-glove with the killers to shift the blame or he may have simply not noticed who shot Suri. ‘’All he saw was Suri collapsing after being shot. If there were more persons in the car, it was possible that not Bhanu but the other person shot him. Another possibility could be that Suri was shot while getting in or out of the car when it stopped there due to which he collapsed in the car,’’ they said.
Probing from this angle, sources said that there was every possibility of Bhanu fleeing the place as he was the second in the list of targets after Suri.
“Bhanu may have got scared and ran for his life. Even the media started projecting him as an accused than a suspect,’’ a police official said. In fact, soon after the murder, Hyderabad police commissioner AK Khan had not confirmed that it was only Bhanu who was seated inside the car which meant that the sleuths had not arrived at the conclusion on how many persons were seated in the rear along with Bhanu. However, at a press meet today, Khan denied that Bhanu was picked up.
–Agencies