The brutal and rape and murder of young veterinary doctor has shaken the conscience of Telangana. Sympathies pour in to her kin even as hundreds of angry people mobbed the Shadnagar police station, about 50 km from here, where the four accused are housed, and demanded harsh punishment to the perpetrators.

A large number of youth, representatives of various women’s organisations and activists, started gathering at the police station from this morning. Raising protests, they tried to barge into the station crossing the barricades. The police closed the gates of the station and resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowds.

Thousands, lakhs perhaps, of people took to social media to express shock and anger over the dastardly death of the young veterinary doctor. Almost all social media handles in the State were filled with posts and comments, severely condemning the incident. Some wanted the accused to be killed, stoned to death, hanged and even ‘encountered’.

The victim was murdered on Wednesday night near Tondupally toll plaza where she parked two-wheeler in the evening and returned to that place to get back home. Sensing danger, she called her younger sister and expressed fears about her safety in the lonely place on the high-way. The four accused abducted her, luring her with help, raped her and killed her.

Her murder sent shock waves across Telangana, triggering the police to launch a massive search and arrest them in a few hours.

“I’m afraid. Please keep on talking,” she requested her sister before her phone switched off.

Series of crime against women

The latest was the fourth murder in the State in a span of four days. While a 19-year-girl was raped and killed by a friend on her birthday, a Dalit woman was gang-raped and murdered at Asifabad. Even as people in a state of shock after the police found the charred body of the veterinary doctor, passers-by found the body of an unknown woman at Shamshabad near here. The reason for her death is yet to be ascertained.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar had said that the crime was pre-planned by the accused – Mohammed alias Areef (26), Jollu Shiva (20), Jollu Naveen (20_ and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu (20). The accused, who saw the woman parking her two-wheeler near the toll plaza in the evening, deflated a tyre and on her return at about 9.30 p.m. offered her to get it fixed.

While one took the vehicle with him, the other three accosted her and whisked her away to place off the road. Meanwhile, the other accomplice joined them and raped her one after the other and gagged her to death. Two of them went to fetch a bottle of petrol, but two petrol pumps turned them away. “They succeeded in their third attempt and got it from a petrol pump near Kollur. The four doused the body with petrol and torched it,” Sajjanar told media.

The veterinary doctor’s colleagues and other staff at the Animal Husbandry Department office at Masab Tank here held a rally on Friday evening, mourning her death.

Union Minister of State for Home Kishen Reddy, who visited the veterinary doctor’s residence in Hyderabad to console her family, said a single-button helpline would soon be introduced in the State. Besides sending an SoS message to the police, it would also alert the family members when the victim dialled the number.

Published on November 30, 2019