After a 26-year-old veterinary doctor’s body was found burnt to death on Thursday, the Cyberabad police, on Friday, arrested four men for allegedly raping and killing her on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
The accused have been identified as Mohammed Areef (26), Jollu Shiva (20), Jollu Naveen (20) and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu (20). All four men are natives of Narayanpet district.
Cyberabad Commissioner V Sajjanar said that the Cyberabad police, Shadnagar police and Shamshabad police worked together to crack the case of the brutal rape and murder within 48 hours.
With the help of clues at the scene of crime, tracking CCTV cameras along the route taken by the accused, eyewitnesses and based on human intelligence, the police say they nabbed the four accused, who were then taken into custody at Shadnagar police station.
According to the police, Mohammad Areef, a lorry driver and the prime accused, was supposed to make a delivery of load in Hyderabad on Tuesday. Since the receiver wasn’t reachable, he, along with his cleaner Jollu Siva and the other two accomplices Naveen and Chennakeshavulu parked the lorry near Tondupally toll gate, Shamshabad, which is in the outskirts of Hyderabad.
On Wednesday, around 6pm, the four of them saw Madhuri (name changed) park her vehicle and leave and then hatched a plan against her. The four accused, the police say, were consuming alcohol at the time.
As per their plan, Naveen deflated Madhuri’s scooty tyre and waited for her to return. When Madhuri returned from Gachibowli at 9.15 pm to pick up her vehicle and leave, Areef got off the lorry, went up to her, showed her that the tyre was ‘punctured’ and offered to get it repaired. He then sent the cleaner Shiva to repair the vehicle.
This is around the time Madhuri called her sister Ramya (name changed), where she told her sister that a lorry driver offered to fix the flat tyre and sent the cleaner to repair it. The phone call, a recording of which, was widely circulated on Thursday, shows Madhuri telling Ramya that she was really scared.
Within 15 minutes of the conversation between Madhuri and Ramya, around 9.40 pm Madhuri’s phone was turned off. Areef, Naveen and Chennakeshavulu then forcibly took her to a compound that was closeby and raped her, say the police.
Madhuri was then gang-raped by all four of them, during which Areef forcibly closed her mouth and nose, causing her death.
After this, Areef and Chennakeshavulu put her body in the lorry cabin, wrapped in a blanket.
According to the police investigation, the lorry was moved from near the toll gate at 10.08 pm, which is when they say the body was put in the lorry.
At 10.28 pm, the scooty first left, ridden by Siva and Naveen and subsequently the lorry departed at 10.33 pm and proceeded towards Shadnagar.
At around 1am, the accused stopped at Essar Petrol pump near Nandigam to buy petrol, but the petrol pump didn’t sell them petrol out of suspicion. Petrol was then bought from an Indian Oil fuel station near Kothur.
The four accused also took some diesel in a bottle from their lorry. People working at these pumps, who saw the accused are likely to be crucial witnesses in the case.
They then they took a u-turn near Shadnagar crossroads and stopped on the road above the underpass. Parking the lorry there, they covered the body in a blanket and carried it to the underpass and set it on fire. According to the police, this was done around 2-2.30am.
They then left the crime scene, disposed the scooty near Kothur and from there, went to the Aramghar junction and parted ways. Areef proceeded in the lorry to deliver his load in the city.
CCTV footage from the toll gate, the petrol pump and the route that the two vehicles took will be of crucial evidence in the case.
Police have registered a case under 376 (punishment for rape), 302 (punishment for murder) and sections of Nirbhaya Act.
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