Initially, the Shamshabad airport police had refused to register an FIR.
HYDERABAD: Had the Cyberabad police acted on time, the life of the 26-year-old veterinary doctor who was gang raped and murdered by four persons on the night of 27 November could have been saved. This is the focal point of outrageous anger from her family members over the gruesome kidnap, gang rape and murder barely four km from the Shamshabad International Airport near Hyderabad.
The variations between an initial postmortem report and the claims by a police team on the time of death of the victim, lent credence to doubts over the possible failure of police in coming to her rescue. The doctors who conducted a postmortem on the body of the deceased doctor felt that she might have died around 2 am (intervening night of 28 November).
But the police of Cyberabad who are investigating the case said that the young woman might have been murdered by the rapists at around 11pm immediately after they gang raped her. The victim’s sister, a second-year engineering student, and her mother and father approached Shamshabad airport police first at 10.40 pm, but the cops refused to register an FIR on the grounds of jurisdiction of police station.
The doctor came out of her nearby habitation at Shamshabad airport at 6 pm and parked her two-wheeler (Scooty) at a toll plaza and then took a cab to a beauty salon in Gachibowli around 14 km from there. The four accused—(two lorry drivers and two cleaners) Mohammad Arif (26), Jollu Srinu (20), Jullu Naveen (21) and Chennakesavulu (24)—had seen her and hatched a plan to kidnap and rape her.
They heard her telling the toll plaza staff that she would return in an hour or so and they deflated her two-wheeler so that she would depend on them for repairing it. She returned around 9.30 pm and these youth first approached her promising to help her out by fixing the tyre. She believed them and they pretended to be helping her and finally dragged her away from the national highway to an isolated place at the night.
People at the toll plaza who had seen her talking to these youth thought that they knew each other and didn’t suspect any foul play. Later, the youth gang raped her at a nearby place and gagged her so that she could not scream. The police said that as Arif had shut her mouth and nose during the atrocity, she first lost her consciousness and later died.
The youth later loaded her body into their lorry and took it to a nearby place and burnt it with petrol procured from a nearly petrol pump at 2.40 am. The delay in disposing of the body was because two petrol pumps refused to give them petrol in bottles. The police tracked down the accused through footage of CCTV cameras at the toll plaza as well as at some places on the highway.
The ghastly cold-blooded gang rape and murder of a young doctor has triggered nationwide protests and thousands of people from all over the world have expressed their condemnation and anguish over the incident. Thousands gathered outside the Shamshabad police station where the four accused were kept, demanding that they be handed over to them so that they can kill them instantly.
Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy visited the victim’s house on Saturday afternoon and said that the Centre was planning to launch a nationwide toll free number 112 so that any woman in distress can approach the cops. “I am going to make an announcement on women’s safety measures in Parliament on 2 December, Monday,” he said.
National Women’s Commission chairperson Rekha Sharma expressed shock and anguish over the gang rape and murder of the doctor and deputed a team of the Commission to find out the facts of the crime. The team visited the victim’s parents and recorded their statements on the alleged delay in police failure to respond in time.
Described as the “Second Nirbhaya” after 2012 incident of gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi, this brutal rape and murder of the doctor too pulled hundreds of IT professionals and college students on the streets not only in Hyderabad, but across the country. People from all walks of life, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, have voiced concern over growing atrocities against women.
Telangana Goveror Tamilisai called on the family members of the deceased doctor and expressed her condolences to them. TRS Ministe K.T. Rama Rao issued a statement that the government would do its best to see that the guilty are given the harshest punishment as per the law. “We all hope that this shall be the last such crime against women,” said Telangana Home Minister Mahmood Ali.
However, within 24 hours of the veterinary doctor’s gang rape and murder, the police of Shamshabad noticed another ghastly rape and murder of an unknown woman at the same place. The cops on Friday evening saw a half burnt body of a woman who is believed to have been raped barely one km from the site where the doctor was burnt.
The Outer Ring Road connecting the international airport and its surrounding areas have become notorious for crimes against women. In the last eight months, as many as four women (apart from the last two incidents) were raped and murdered by assailants. The understaffed Cyberabad police are hard-pressed to solve these cases.