The Telangana High Court on Friday ordered a judicial inquiry into the death of the man accused of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl in Hyderabad, reported PTI.
The accused man, identified as Pallakonda Raju, was found dead on railway tracks on Thursday morning. This came two days after Telangana Labour Minister Malla Reddy had said that the man would be killed in an encounter.
While the family members of the accused have alleged that Raju was killed, the police said he died by suicide. Activists on Thursday submitted a memorandum to the Acting Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court MS Ramachandra Rao. They raised suspicion on the run-up of events that led to his death.
“I am positive that it was the police who killed my husband,” Raju’s wife alleged, according to The New Indian Express. “They also detained us [Raju’s family members] and took our signatures on white papers. When we asked them the reason, they did not give any proper reply.”
During Friday’s hearing, the High Court ordered a local court in Warangal city to submit the inquiry report within four weeks.
Acting Chief Justice Rao and Justice T Amarnath Goud directed the state government to hand over the videos of Raju’s postmortem to the Warangal principal district judge.
The High Court’s order came on a petition for emergency hearing moved by Telangana Civil Liberties Committee chief Gaddam Laxman. Besides judicial inquiry, the petitioner has also sought Rs 50 lakh compensation for Raju’s family.
The rape and murder case
The body of the girl was found in Raju’s house on September 10, a day after he had allegedly raped and murdered her in Hyderabad’s Saidabad area. A postmortem report confirmed that the girl had been raped and strangled.
On September 12, Telangana minister KT Rama Rao tweeted that the accused man had been arrested. However, two days later, Rao retracted the tweet saying that he had been misinformed.
Massive protests had erupted in Saidabad after the news of the man’s arrest turned out to be false. The residents demanded justice for the girl’s family, with some even calling for the accused to be shot dead in an encounter.
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