HYDERABAD: In an unexpected turn of events, irate villagers set fire to a thatched shelter in front of the house of one M Srinivasa Reddy on Tuesday, suspecting him to be responsible for the serial killings of three teenage girls — Kalpana, Maneesha and Shravani — from Hazipur before raping them in Bommlaramaram mandal in Yadadri-Bhongir district.

The villagers, who were seething with rage over the heinous act of rape and murder, gathered around his house in the morning and set fire to the thatched front portion, while a few others ransacked articles inside the house, despite the presence of police personnel. They wanted the police to hand over immediate punishment to Srinivasa, who was arrested on Tuesday, and not delay the process by filing a case in court and waiting for a judgment, which could take long.

As the villagers were livid, the police deployed additional forces in the village. Apprehending trouble, the family members of Srinivasa Reddy fled in the morning itself.

The police retrieved two bodies from an abandoned 50-feet-deep agricultural well in the village and are now looking for vestiges of the first girl, Kalpana, who went missing four years ago, in the same well.  The second girl — Maneesha — was missing for the last two months, and the third girl - Shravani - was reported missing for the last few days. The police said Srinivasa had raped them before killing them.

Kalpana, who was from Mysireddypall in the same mandal, went missing while returning from a visit to her grandmother in Hazipur about four years ago. The police, after investigating the case for some time, lost interest as they could not get any clues about what happened to her.

The irate villagers also accused the police of negligence in investigating Kalpana disappearance.

Rachakonda CP Mahesh Bhagwat said they had evidence that Srinivasa had raped and murdered the three girls, apart from killing a sex worker in AP in 2016. After an argument with the woman in his penthouse, he and his friends, killed and threw her body into the overhead tank