The “honour killing” case of Nalgonda has taken many sensational twists and turns, adding a political angle to the brutal murder.
While Nalgonda district police has claimed that it was very close to achieving break through in the case by identifying the main killers, the victim’s wife Amruthavarshini has alleged that her father T Maruti Rao had paid a whopping Rs 10 million to get her husband Pranay Kumar killed.
According to police sources, 9 or ten people were involved in the killing of Pranay last week. Maruti Rao was the main conspirator, as he wanted the Dalit youth killed for marrying his upper-caste daughter.
The police have already arrested five people, including Maruti Rao, his brother Shravan, friend Kareem.
There were speculations that the police have also taken Abdul Bari and Shafi into custody and Abdul Bari confessed that he had given the responsibility of eliminating Pranay to Shafi.
Abdul Bari is a notorious rowdy in Nalgonda and he was also accused in the case of murder of former Gujrat Home Minister Haren Pandya.
According to the police sources, Maruthi Rao, a prominent businessman from Bania community, had come into contact with Abdul Bari a few years ago when Bari had kidnapped in a land grabbing case.
Maruti Rao gave him the contract to kill Pravany who had married his daughter in January in Hyderabad.
Rao approached Abdul Bari two months ago and hired his services to eliminate Pranay Kumar.
Police sources said that during the questioning Maruti Rao admitted his hand in the killing and also justified it. “For me nothing is more important than my social status and name, not even my daughter or her happiness”, he reportedly told the police.
Police officials said that Maruti Rao was one of the richest business and politically very influential personality of Miryalaguda town of Nalgonda district.
He was reportedly worth Rs 100 crores as he had his finger in many pies including the real estate and kerosene business. He and his brother had also recently joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti and had his photographs with a minister G Jagdeesh Reddy and TRS MLA Vemula Veeresham.
There was a big hoarding in the town with the photo of Maruti Ra with the minister.
Amrtuha, whose husband was hacked to death in front of her eyes has alleged that her father spent a huge mount of money to get her husband killed. She also alleged that her father had tried to pressurize her through the TRS MLA Veeresham to desert her husband and return to her parents which she refused.
Amrutha alleged that the MLA took money from her father and threatened her as well as parents of Pranay.
Nalgonda district superintendent of police AV Ranganath confirmed that Maruti Rao had approached political leaders of different parties including Veeresham for their help to get his daughter back.
“But there is no evidence to link the MLA to the killing”, he said.
According to the investigation Maruti Rao had quite a shoddy background. Belonging to a lower middle class family Maruti Rao originally belonged Kakinada but settled in Miryalaguda about two decades ago.
Starting as a kerosene dealer he gradually developed his business as a dealer of jiggery and expanded it to real estate.
There were also allegations that through the manipulation and forgery of documents and revenue records he grabbed prime lands including those allotted to freedom fighters.
He also developed many ventures and earned a lot of money to emerge as one of the richest persons in the town.
At one stage he was involved in a confrontation with the dreaded naxalite turn mafia don Nayeemuddin over a piece of land. But the two later compromised and cooperated with each other.
Nayeem was killed in an encounter with the police a couple of years ago.