By Our Bureau Chief of Hyderabad:
The 26- year old very beautiful lady, Ms. Priyanka Reddy went missing on November 27, 2019 (Wednesday) night and was found dead and partially burnt under Chatanpalli Bridge in Shadnagar in the outskirts of Hyderabad, electronic & IT hub state of India the next morning.
She worked as a veterinarian doctor in Kolluru village. Priyanka left her home around 5:30 PM on Wednesday for some clinical work, parked her scooter at a toll plaza and hired a cab to reach to a private hospital for her work. Accused spotted Priyanka while parking her scooter and managed to target her with a proper plan. According to the Police; she returned to the parking area around 9:00 PM and saw that rear wheel of her parked scooter was punctured.
According to the CCTV footage, two men offered her help in fixing the punctured vehicle and they took her scooter for getting it fixed. Both of them returned after a short period and claimed that all nearby repair shops were closed and they helped her by taking it to another shop, according to the Police. She was waiting for them at an isolated place where some trucks & Lorries were parked.
Priyanka called her sister Bhavya on November 27 at around 9:15 PM and narrated the whole incident to her including her concerns of isolated area and unwanted assistance offered by unknown people. During the communication, she said some lorry drivers were sitting there in their Lorries and she was not feeling safe and secure. Her sister advised her to stand near the toll plaza and to leave her scooter there and grab a cab to reach home. Bhavya, victim’s younger sister told the Police.
Priyanka disconnected the call and assured her sister that she will call her soon. When Bhavya was trying to call Priyanka around 9:44 PM but her (victim’s) phone was switched off. After waiting for some time, her family and sister went to the toll plaza to search for Priyanka, and they looked out for her at all surrounding areas of toll plaza, but she couldn’t be found. Around 11:00 PM, they filed a missing complaint at a nearby (Shamshabad) police station. The Police filed the complaint and started the investigation and the next morning on Thursday Priyanka’s charred body was found 25Km away from the toll plaza. Priyanka’s dead body was recognized by the necklace and clothes she was wearing on that day.
Prakash Reddy, DCP of Shamshabad area police station said, “We are checking CCTV footage from the area”. The Police got the information about the burnt body on Thursday at 7:30 AM. Police investigated that she was doused with kerosene and then charred. The police team firmly believes that the Priyanka’s scooter was punctured intentionally and was part of the culpritic plan of the accused. The CCTV footage of the toll plaza has been viewed by Police to know about suspects. According to the CCTV footage, Police identified that four people are responsible for the Priyanka Reddy murder and rape case. The four accused persons are known to be Mohammad Pasha aka Areef, (26, lorry driver); Jollu Shiva, (20, lorry driver), Jollu Naveen, (23, cleaner) and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu (20, cleaner). According to a report in Telangana Today, after setting the body on fire under the culvert at Chatanpally in Shadnagar between 2 am and 2.30 am, the gang left the crime spot in the truck and on the scooter. However, while Arif and Chennakeshavulu went away, Shiva and Naveen, who were on the scooter, returned to the spot a little later to check if the body was completely burnt. The sources and reports also claim that Priyanka was forcefully intoxicated before she was raped.
According to our investigation, we have found that Priyanka’s sister went to the nearby police station and her report was not taken and no action was taken on missing complaint and sister was guided to another police station, which was having jurisdiction over the missing area or incident area. While notable consideration is that the Indian police has to take any report from anyone for any area even that area falls in that police station’s area or not and this type of taken police report is called Zero FIR. If Zero FIR was taken from the victim’s sister, may be this incident could be stopped. When victim’s sister was trying to get help and assistance from the local police and running from one police station to the other at that time victim was struggling with the rape that was taking place by four people with one victim.. and that was Priyanka Reddy.
Digging Deeper
The gut wrenching and gruesome case has taken an entirely new turn as the 4 accused in the case have been shot dead in police encounter.
What exactly happened?
According to the police the incident took place around 18:30 on 6 December (Friday) when the accused, who were not handcuffed, were taken on the site of offence by 10 armed policemen, for reconstruction of the crime scene, as part of the investigation.VC Sajjanar, police commissioner of Hyderabad suburb of Cyberabad told the sources “they (accused) snatched the weapons from police and fired on them (where two police officers got injured) and in retaliation and as self defense the police fired and shot the 4 accused dead on the same spot where the body of the victim was found.
“The four men got together and started to attack the officers with stones and sticks and also snatched away weapons from two officers and started firing” the commissioner said.
Just after the news of 4 accused being killed broke out, the nation got divided into two different groups having different opinions and reactions. Where one group is celebrating the encounter and is praising the police the other group is raising questions on judicial proceedings and law enforcement in the country.
There is a huge outbreak on social media and debates are happening regarding the incident. “Extra-judicial killings are unacceptable” Shashi Tharoor, a senior congress leader of India expressed.
There is also an opinion where people are saying that the encounter is an attempt of the Indian government to distract the public from government’s failure to safeguard women’s rights and not lodging the FIR or the victim’s sister as Zero FIR (First Information Report of the complaint).
Is encounter the justice? Should the police be praised? Is taking law in one’s own hand a right way to go about these crimes? There should be more stringent laws for security of women or like many other cases this too will be swept under the carpet. Is this justice granted or justice disguised?
Now the world’s legal community is looking into this incident and asking some investigative questions that how and why the accused were taken to the scene of incident without handcuffed? while the police knew that they were important to the law enforcement and whole the country was out crying on their act.
India has a long history of gang rapes and even government of India has dealt with the criminals on these issues, but these are happening over and over.
World’s leaders are also concerned about these rapes in India. Canada’s politician, who has roots in India and is an elected official from, Mr. Jasvir Singh Deol, MLA, Alberta mentioned is concerns on facebook.
Worldwide recognized author of many books and well known psychologist and advocate of Haryana and Punjab High Court Dr. Rama Kant Dawar mentioned in an over the phone interview that these types of criminal acts are sick mentally sick people’s acts and rape committers are mentally sick. According to Dr. Rama Kant Dawar, rapists are pre-meditated to commit the crime of rape and it is not the need of their body, it is the need of their sick mind and people, who are having these thoughts need to be treated by psychologists and psychiatrists and community need to reach out to the elected officials of India to have the strict laws on rape issues.
Political Hands
According to the recent news, Police Chief of Hyderabad just had a press conference and stated that all the culprits and accused were given a shelter by one of the former village president, who is called as a village Sarpanch.
What a shameful event is this that a local level politician knowingly gave shelter to these mentally sick criminals, who not only committed a rape, but as well as the murder.
According to the Meneka Sanjay Gandhi member of Indian Parliament and Animal Rights Activist issued a statement stating that police took this event in its hands and killed the accused persons, while it was a duty of our judiciary system and court system. These people needed to hang till to death.
Police tried to console the general public of India on this rape and murder, but took the law in their own hands. Some of the politicians are silent, but some of them speaking against the police force of Hyderabad.
Prime Minister of India and President of India have not broken their silence on this issue. Hyderabad police sent three buses full of police men and women in the village of Priyanka Reddy to protect the women considering the retaliation of the killed accused relatives and friends and alliances.
It seems that the police is covering a lot, as the four accused were in custody of ten police men, who were armed and these four men how they took over ten people and took their arms and stoned the police and then if the arms were taken over by these four people, how the police used lethal power to kill these four accused persons.
General public, media, administration and politicians are unable to absorb the story of police, but on the other hand people are having a relief that at least these accused are sentenced, but what about the judiciary and now there are going to be internal investigation against all the ten police men and their supervisors or seniors.
According to the reports foreign nations diplomats are also calling Indian authorities including the United Nation to deal with these types of incidents in India.
When spoken to foreign diplomats of the United States of America, who spoke to our special representative stated that these things shouldn’t happen at all and he brought up the matter that even foreign visitors don’t feel comfortable visiting India and Pakistan and we suggest them to stay in public view not in any isolated area and keep your phones active and even people who hail from India or Pakistan, they are suggested the same.
According to the Bollywood news now actors are throwing their boiled anger against the politicians of India and asking for the security of women and girls in India. As this matter of Dr. Priyanka Reddy is boiling, people are not forgetting the Jaipur, Rajasthan rape of six years old girl.
Is it a political dilemma where the government has used the police and killed these four people and trying to divert the attention of Indians from other rapes, gang rapes and many mores Issues surfacing outcry of people.
In India people who are favoring the police and are happy with the killing of these accused are celebrating and serving and delivering the sweet candies locally known as Laddos.
