Fear may shut school doors on Hajipur girls

HYDERABAD: The new academic year is set to start next month, but residents of Hajipur village, about 40 km from Secunderabad, are not ready to send its daughters to school. The village in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district is the home of alleged serial killer Srinivas Reddy who was arrested last month for raping and killing three minor girls from the village and another woman over a period of four years.
Hajipur has one small school up to class III. Children wanting to study further have to travel between eight and 10 km to nearby towns. Srinivas had allegedly offered his victims a lift home from the highway while they were returning home or were on their way to school and then attacked them at an isolated spot. With the brutal crimes still fresh in the minds of the villagers, many of the girls may have to give up on their education for the time being.
The villagers want the 28-year-old lift mechanic to be hanged publicly and the case to be tried by a fast-track court. “We want him executed in public. We have to see him suffer,” said 55-year-old Yadamma, paternal grandmother of one of the three minor victims.
Since the alleged killer’s arrest, a state transport bus has started plying up to the village. TOI travelled with Yadamma on the bus as she was on her way to a hospital at Bommalaramaram for a check-up. “The frequency has increased to the village,” bus conductor Balraj says. The Rachakonda police have also fixed CCTV cameras at 12 places in Hajipur. A 24/7 police picket is also there.
All this is too little, too late for Yadamma’s family. It was on April 25 that her 14-year-old granddaughter was raped and murdered by Srinivas. Her body thrown into a village well.
“All the villagers had fanned out in the area to look for her when they found her bag in the fields. They found her body in the well close by,” recalled her parents Nagalaxmi and Narasimha. “Srinivas was there during the search and even guided those who entered the well to look for the body. At that time no one suspected him. We find this difficult to come to terms with.”
There is also talk in the village that Srinivas wrote the names of his victims on a tree trunk and lit incense sticks there, but this could not be verified. Mallesham, father of a 17-year-old victim, is still inconsolable. “I had asked her to discontinue her studies, but she was keen to complete school,” he says. “Did I made a mistake by allowing her to go to school?” he asks between sobs.
His three other daughters have already married. His wife had died a few years ago. In March, when his daughter went missing, he had searched for her all over but did not give a police complaint as he hoped to find her. The girl’s body was later found in the same well as the 14-year-old. “My daughter is dead. No girl in the village is safe with the thought that the man who killed her is still alive,” said Mallesham.
The third victim was from neighbouring Maisireddypally. The 11-year-old had disappeared four years ago from Hajipur where she gone to visit her aunt. The news of the two bodies led her father Pungani Nandan to connect the dots and file a police complaint. “My daughter’s body was also found in another well,” he said.
Hajipur is an isolated hamlet. “There is no village after us in the mandal. So, only those who belong to the village come here. There is a need for bridge to connect Hajipur with Bhuvanagiri,” Hajipur sarpanch Kavitha Venkatesh told TOI.
Today, the house of the accused, which is close to the gram panchayat office, lies in ruins. It had been set ablaze by the villagers. Srinivas’s parents and brother have also fled the village. But that hasn’t abated the anger. Recently, hundreds of residents from five surrounding villages came together and held a rally with one demand: hang him in public.