A local court in Warangal will pronounce on Wednesday the judgment in the sensational case of nine murders committed by a single person five months ago in Gorrekunta village of Geesukonda mandal here.
Despite the constraints due to COVID-19, the investigators and the prosecutors got the trial of the case completed in less than five weeks in the First Additional District and Sessions Judge court of Warangal. Final arguments by public prosecutor Mokila Satyanarayana Goud and defence counsel T. Sridhar were completed on October 22.
The PP sought capital punishment to the accused Sanjay Kumar Yadav citing it as the rarest of the rare case. All, the accused and the nine victims were members of migrant workers’ families. The nine victims were Maqsood Alam, 50, his wife Nisha Alam, 45, their sons Shabaz Alam, 21, Sohail Alam, 20, daughter Bushra Alam, 22, Bushra’s three-year-old son, Sriram, 35, Shyam, 40 and Shakeel, 40.
Twenty-four-year-old Sanjay of Bihar came to Warangal six years ago for livelihood. He used to work in a gunny bag making unit where Maqsood worked and lived with his family. Sanjay developed relationship with a woman Rafika of West Bengal, also a migrant worker, living close-by. She was a relative of Maqsood’s wife.
Rafika used to live with her three children separately. Police stated that Sanjay promised to marry Rafika but eventually cast an eye on her teenaged daughter. Suspecting that he had sexually assaulted her daughter, the woman questioned him.
To get rid of her, Sanjay led her to believe that they had to meet his elders in Bengal. Along with Rafika, he boarded a train in March third week. On reaching Tadepallygudem, he administered sleeping pills to her. When she fell unconscious, he threw her from running train and returned to Warangal.
Maqsood’s wife grew suspicious of Sanjay’s contradictory replies after asking him about Rafika. She threatened to approach police if he failed to reveal facts. Worried of consequences, he decided to eliminate Maqsood’s family. He mixed sleeping pills in the food prepared for the birthday party of one of Maqsood’s children. Shyam, Sriram and Shakeel, who lived in the same compound, also had food and fell unconscious along with Maqsood and his family members.
Sanjay allegedly dumped the nine unconscious people in an abandoned well nearby. “We are confident of securing stringent punishment to the accused,” said Mamnoor ACP Shyam Sunder who investigated the case.
