Six murders, a dead suspect and a chilling trail gone cold
For 63 hours, the answers to six murders in a quiet farming village near Hyderabad lay with a man who had simply disappeared. His phone
For 63 hours, the answers to six murders in a quiet farming village near Hyderabad lay with a man who had simply disappeared. His phone was on airplane mode. Surveillance cameras captured him stepping onto railway tracks as a train approached, only for him to step away at the last moment. A bus ticket to L.B. Nagar in the capital and ₹1,206 in cash was later found on him. Three days later, his body was discovered 20 km from home beside a bottle of herbicide. The trail led back to Daivalaguda village in Shabad, about 50 km from Hyderabad, where violent crime was virtually unheard of until the night of July 10. Between 10.30 p.m. and midnight, six people were killed in two houses six kilometres apart. The alleged killer, Parvathi Raj Kumar, was out on anticipatory bail in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (PoCSO) Act case involving one of the victims. At 11.50 p.m., he called his father, confessed to the killings and said he intended to end his life. The victims were 17-year-old Akshara (name changed), her mother Lakshmi, 44, and her grandmother Rukkamma, and Raj Kumar’s wife Saritha, 32, and their two young sons, aged 4 and 18 months. Raj Kumar’s disappearance and death have left investigators piecing together CCTV footage, a 13-minute video, forensic evidence and questions over the handling of the PoCSO case. With the only suspect now dead, many of the questions may never be answered. For residents of Daivalaguda, the case has left behind a haunting question: had Raj Kumar been arrested after the PoCSO case was registered on May 16, instead of securing anticipatory bail on June 13, could the killings have been prevented? The 63-hour gap Police are still reconstructing Raj Kumar’s movements during those 63 hours. According to the preliminary investigation, Raj Kumar left his Daivalaguda home at 10.30 p.m. on July 10 in a red car hired from a man in Shadnagar after pledging his two-wheeler. Police believe the six murders were committed over the next hour. Investigators believe he first drove to PoCSO complainant Akshara’s house, where he allegedly killed the girl’s mother and grandmother before leaving with her around 11.10 p.m. He returned home at 11.22 p.m., leaving the girl in the car, and is suspected to have killed his wife and two sons before driving away about 10 minutes later. He then allegedly took the girl to a lake about 200 metres away, where she was killed. Raj Kumar, police say, abandoned the car near Thimmapur village, where he stepped on to the railway tracks before retreating, and then headed towards L.B. Nagar. His movements after that remain under investigation. Hours before the murders, at 4.55 p.m. on July 10, Raj Kumar recorded a 13-minute video on his phone that has become a key piece of evidence.
The BriefWire