People direct anger at the police following rape and murder of Hyderabad woman

Even as the four accused men, who allegedly raped, murdered and burnt the body of the 26-years-old veterinarian in Hyderabad, were remanded to police custody for 14 days, people’s ire is directed at the police and government officials. Three policemen have been suspended for delay in registering the complaint.

The woman’s family members have claimed that police initially refused to take their complaint seriously. They assumed she had voluntarily run away. Police had been contacted less than an hour after her phone was switched off on Wednesday evening. But despite the police being told of the circumstances and the place where she last was at around 10 pm, it was not till 3 am that they went out to look for her.

By then the culprits had driven the body 27 kilometres away from the toll bridge, from where she was abducted and set it on fire.

What has incensed people even more is the information that the lorry used by the culprits did not have proper papers, that the driver, one of the accused didn’t have a valid driving license and that the lorry had been intercepted by RTO ( Regional Transport Office) on Monday, November 25, and yet the lorry and the driver had been let off.

The lorry, eyewitnesses have confirmed, was parked at the toll bridge since the morning of November 27. Police has admitted that a police patrol had spotted the lorry parked on the roadside and had asked the driver to move.

It is not yet clear why the lorry was not moved and why the police failed to detect it over the next several hours. Nor did the police apparently demand to see the documents.

The remand application filed by the police claim that the accused were drinking on the roadside from 5.30 pm onwards. But between 5.30 pm and 9.30 pm, when the woman was finally abducted, no police patrol apparently noticed them.

The victim had parked her scooter around 6 pm next to the toll bridge and taken a cab to her clinic. The victim’s house was barely 3.5 kilometres from the toll bridge. The culprits had noticed her parking her scooter and take the cab. They deflated a tyre with a view to detain her on her return. When she returned to pick up her scooter, the culprits offered to help and took advantage of the situation to abduct her.

What gave them away was the toll booth operator who remembered one of the culprits approaching him with the woman and the scooter, seeking directions to the nearest repair shop.

The second break for the police came when an attendant at a petrol outlet grew suspicious when two of the culprits arrived close to midnight on the red scooter and demanded a few bottles to be filled up with petrol. This attendant called up the police when the news of the rape and murder was telecast on Thursday.