After having a few morsels of food along with her daughter on Thursday, *Maisamma (named changed) rushed to Hajipur. The Hajipur village sarpanch, Kavitha, had summoned her. Dodging the stares of the villagers, to avoid any interaction with them, she joined the Sarpanch, who was waiting at the village’s panchayat office. The Sarpanch then made quick calls and ensured that all the family members of the other rape victims were present to give a media statement. This was the day which they had been waiting for — the day when they would get justice.
The Nalgonda special court on Thursday was scheduled to pronounce the verdict on Marri Srinivas Reddy, who was accused of raping and killing three minor girls between the age of 11-17.
At around 2.15 pm, the court held Srinivas guilty of the rape and murder. Reacting to the news, Maisamma, said, “The only justice acceptable to us is the death penalty to him. That alone can offer us some solace.”
Maisamma is a resident of Maisireddypalli. Maisamma’s youngest daughter was raped and killed by Srinivas five years ago. “Srinivas was a creep. When I used to come here (Hajipur), he always stared at me. Though I made it evident that I had noticed his creepy behaviour, he would still stare,” Maisamma recalled. A couple of years ago, Maisamma was working as a construction worker in Hajipur. “I had an inkling that maybe he did something to my daughter, but I never imagined that he had killed her.”
In 2015, Srinivas had killed Maisamma’s 11-year-old daughter Lakshmi*, when she came to Hajipur to take care of her aunt, who had fractured her hand.
“We made rounds of the police stations and bus stands across the city, but nothing came of it. We finally gave up,” she said.
Serial rapist and murderer Srinivas evaded police and suspicion of the villagers for several years until he was finally caught in April 2019.
It was the disappearance of 14-year-old Shravya* (name changed) that led to the arrest of Srinivas. Shravya, a resident of Hajipur, studying in Medchal went missing on April 25, 2019. She was supposed to return home by 1 pm. However, she did not. By evening, her worried parents and family members searched the school premises, neighbouring villages and checked with the auto drivers in the vicinity for any information about their missing daughter. All their attempts remained futile. Subsequently, they approached Bommalaramaram police, which too did not yield any result.
Shravya’s family members continued their searches and two days later, they found her school bag near an abandoned well. Police upon investigation found three bodies dumped in the well. Investigation revealed that Srinivas had killed all the three girls. Besides killing Shravya and Kavitha, Srinivas had killed another 17-year-old girl, four months ago.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the judgement was delayed but the family members patiently sat around the neem tree at the panchayat office, hoping for good news from the court.
The judgement came late in the evening, at around 6.30 pm. The court passed the verdict that the convict, Srinivas should be hanged to death.
Heaving a huge sight of huge relief, Shravya’s mother said, “This is what we expected from the court, swift justice. The verdict reimposed our faith in the judiciary. I have been waiting for this news for the past 10 months,” she said.
Echoing the same, Maisamma said, “We are happy about the verdict, but the judiciary should ensure that he is hanged at the earliest.”