Arpita* was 16 when she started going to an intermediate college in Shamshabad, an hour away from her home in Shabad, Telangana. But she only attended classes for a couple of months before her family made her stop, confining her to the house. Her 29-year-old neighbour, Parvathi Rajkumar, had allegedly been stalking her at bus stops on her commute, harassing her to go out with him.
Arpita’s family installed a CCTV camera at home. They made sure she didn’t go anywhere alone and kept her guarded at all times. But on May 16, she had to go to college to write her exams. Her mother, Lakshmi, accompanied her, but Rajkumar allegedly accosted her near the college and tried to drag her away. When Lakshmi stopped him, he threatened to kill them. The family immediately filed a police complaint, and Rajkumar was booked for sexual harassment under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Yet, two months later, Rajkumar followed through on his threat and killed six people at once – Arpita (17), her mother Lakshmi (44), her grandmother Rukkamma, his own wife Saritha (32) and their two little sons, four-year-old Parikshit, and Daivikshit, who was only 18 months old.
Three days after the July 10 mass murders wrecked the two families, Rajkumar was found dead near Penjerla village, about 30 km from Shabad, with a bottle of herbicide next to his body. He is believed to have died by suicide. Police found a video on his phone recorded hours before the murders, in which he claimed he had sold his land and fallen into debt because of extortion by the minor’s family. Police, on the other hand, said he had huge debts of nearly Rs 2 crore from using online gambling sites.
Arpita’s maternal uncle Naresh (Raju) says he tried to do everything he could to protect the family from Rajkumar. He blames police officers at the Shabad police station for not arresting him, alleging they didn’t take the family’s fear of Rajkumar’s threats seriously.
Rajkumar was never arrested in the POCSO case. The Shabad police initially claimed that he was absconding, until he managed to get anticipatory bail a month after the FIR was registered.
Amid public outrage, Sub-Inspector T Ramesh was suspended for “lapses” during the investigation of the POCSO case.
“Since Arpita’s father died last year, it was just women in the house – my sister, her two daughters, and her mother-in-law. SI Ramesh kept telling us not to worry, that Rajkumar wouldn’t harm us. These deaths are a result of police negligence,” Naresh said.
The only survivor of the carnage was Arpita’s elder sister Meghana, who is 19. She was born with a developmental disorder and is nonverbal. Rajkumar spared Meghana after stabbing her mother and grandmother in front of her and dragging her sister away to kill her too.
Rangareddy district Collector C Narayana Reddy has said that authorities are considering moving her to an institution for persons with disabilities, as she needs full-time care.
Six kilometres away in Daivalaguda, Rajkumar’s wife Saritha’s brother, Kappera Sanjeeva, sits in disbelief near the house where his sister and nephews were killed. He recalls his nephew Parikshit running away from his father in fear sometimes, afraid he would hit him.
“He would hit the child sometimes if he was mischievous, but would coddle him later and buy him a packet of chips or a cool drink. We never noticed anything unusual. Now he has ruthlessly slaughtered his own children like goats,” said Sanjeeva.
Months of fear and caution before the murders
After completing Class 10 in a local school in Shabad, Arpita enrolled in a junior college in Shamshabad for intermediate in the BiPC stream (Biology, Physics, Chemistry). Her uncle Naresh says she wanted to pursue a career in medicine and was considering getting a nursing degree.
“We wanted her to study and work. We tried to encourage her by getting her the books she needed, since her father wasn’t around,” said Naresh.
Her deceased father, Mallesh, was an outsourced worker with the electricity department. Her mother, Lakshmi, was a daily wage worker.
Rajkumar had been living next door to Arpita’s family in Shabad for nearly seven years. He had moved there along with his parents and wife, Saritha, soon after their marriage in 2018. The two families were on cordial terms.
But once Arpita started going to college, about 30 km away, Naresh said Rajkumar began stalking her and harassing her during her commute, and forcing her to speak to him over the phone. “She would often have to change two buses for her daily commute. He would wait for her at her college or at the bus stops, and harass her. He would ask her to go out with him,” he said.
Rajkumar allegedly even threatened to kill her if she refused to speak with him.
Finally, Arpita’s mother, Lakshmi, stopped sending her to college and convinced the principal to let her appear for exams directly.
According to Naresh, once Raj Kumar realised that the family had found out about the harassment, he moved to Daivalaguda, his wife Saritha’s village about six kilometres away. His parents, however, continued to live in the family-owned house next door to Arpita. Naresh alleges that Raj Kumar had a CCTV camera outside this house, through which he monitored Arpita’s movements remotely.
Naresh said he, too, helped the family install a CCTV camera for safety, and they all made sure Arpita didn’t step outside of the house alone.
On May 16, she had to go to her college to write an exam. Her mother went along. Rajkumar allegedly turned up at the college, and when Arpita walked out after the exam, he tried to drag her away by her hand. Her mother pulled her away from him, and as they started to run away, Rajkumar allegedly chased them and threatened to kill them “just as he had killed [Lakshmi’s] husband”, according to the mother’s complaint, based on which a POCSO case was registered against Rajkumar the same day.
He was charged with stalking and criminal intimidation under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and sexual harassment under the POCSO Act.
The threat came as a shock to them. According to Naresh, one day in 2025, Rajkumar brought home Arpita’s father, Mallesh, in an unconscious state, saying he had collapsed after drinking excessively. He was hospitalised and died four days later on March 4, 2025.
Speaking to the media after the six murders on July 11, Future City Commissioner of Police Tarun Joshi refuted the allegation that Arpita’s father was killed. He said a hospital had certified the cause of his death as a heart attack.
But when Arpita’s mother heard the threat in May, she suspected foul play in her husband’s death. She started fearing Rajkumar even more, and approached him for help, her brother Naresh said.
‘Lapses’ in POCSO investigation
Naresh and his sister Lakshmi went to the Shabad police station, barely 500 metres from their house, to lodge a complaint. “The Station House Officer, Inspector B Kantha Reddy, and SI Ramesh, both acted like they were very eager to help. But when I checked back with them a couple of days later, they still hadn’t caught Rajkumar. They said he was absconding and kept assuring us they would catch him,” said Naresh.
But Naresh remains unconvinced that the police really tried to arrest him.
“I would get calls from local residents saying they had spotted Rajkumar around town. When I told SI Ramesh, he said tell me next time you spot him, we will get him then,” Naresh alleged.
A month passed without arrest before Rajkumar was granted anticipatory bail on June 12 by the Special Sessions Judge for Trial and Disposal of Cases under the POCSO Act at LB Nagar.
He was ordered to be released on a personal bond of Rs 20,000 after surrendering before a magistrate in Chevella, The New Indian Express reported. The bail order reportedly said, “Since the petitioner was not taken into custody during the course of the investigation and the material witnesses had already been examined, the petition can be allowed by granting anticipatory bail.”
Commissioner Tarun Joshi too said that the police couldn’t find him in the initial week after registering the POCSO case, and he was granted bail as the maximum punishment was under seven years. He was then summoned to the police station for counselling around two or three times, according to the Commissioner.
But Naresh said he was unaware of attempts to counsel him. He alleges lapses in process, saying the police didn’t record the minor girl’s statement in front of a magistrate, or inform the complainants when Rajkumar moved for bail.
He alleges that even after Rajkumar started moving around more freely after getting bail, the police dismissed the family’s fears, saying they needn’t worry, without taking any concrete steps for their safety.
A day after the murders, the Commissioner suspended SI Ramesh for “certain lapses noticed during the investigation” of the POCSO case.
“By dismissing our fears, the police cleared the route for him to commit six murders,” Naresh alleged.
Six murders and a lone survivor
Rajkumar stayed away from Arpita and her family for nearly two months after the complaint was registered.
But on the night of July 10, he barged into their home around 11 pm. The four women, Arpita, her elder sister, their mother and grandmother were all sleeping on the floor of a small room that opens to a small porch. First, he stabbed the mother, Lakshmi, to death. He then killed the grandmother, Rukkamma, in the same way. Then he forced Arpita to leave with him, leaving Meghana, her disabled sister, behind.
He then drove to Daivalaguda with Arpita.
There, he killed her and left her body by a pond. His wife and sons were sleeping in their house, barely 250 metres away. He killed them, too.
According to Commissioner Tarun Joshi, Rajkumar then called his father, confessed to the six murders, and ended the call saying he intended to die by suicide.
The police launched an intense manhunt with multiple teams. The day after the murders, Naresh, along with relatives, neighbours, and local political leaders, staged protests against the police. The next day, on July 12, Naresh and the family were busy organising a memorial for the deceased, having food prepared for guests, and meeting senior politicians visiting to offer condolences.
Amid the chaos right outside her house, Meghana sat in the same room she and her family had lived in for years, where she saw them being killed, and then lying in blood for hours before help arrived. A movie played on the TV, with dried blood spatter on the wall beneath it.
“She gets restless if we turn the TV off,” said Raju, a relative. He said that though she can't verbalise what had happened, she would sometimes make gestures to express what she saw that night.
Rangareddy Collector C Narayana Reddy has announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for Meghana. “Her relatives said she needs constant support, that she cannot live independently. There are government-assisted care centres for disabled persons. We will find a good one where she will be cared for,” he said.
The other family
Nearby in Daivalaguda, Sanjeeva sits by the roadside across from his mother’s house. The spot is almost exactly between the lake where Arpita’s body was found and the house where his sister Saritha and his two nephews were killed.
He recalls how Saritha almost married a different man. The family had arranged a match for her, but she married Raj Kumar. They were in love.
Saritha was from the SC Budaga Jangam community. Rajkumar was SC Madiga. Her in-laws never truly accepted her and kept her at a distance, according to Sanjeeva. He said Rajkumar owned some land in the village but never seemed to work or do farming, and often went into debt due to gambling.
He spoke of what seemed to him like normal marital disputes and anger issues that now seemed more grave in retrospect.
“He would often leave her at our mother’s house when they had problems,” he said. But it was only after the POCSO case that he said he noticed serious problems. He said Rajkumar told Saritha he wanted to be with Arpita, and Saritha refused to accept this.
The family even tried to counsel the couple with the help of the village sarpanch and other elders. “Rajkumar refused to turn up, but his nephew called on his behalf and assured he would change his behaviour. The elders accepted this. They said she belongs with him since they are married, and we should let her go back to him.”
Sanjeeva said his elder nephew, four-year-old Parikshit, went to live with him in Moinabad while Rajkumar was lying low before getting bail. After the bail order, Rajkumar went to pick up his son.
“My nephew seemed scared and refused to go with his father. I told Rajkumar he should be gentler with the kids, and he agreed,” he said.
He said he spoke to his sister Saritha the morning of July 10, hours before she was killed. “We spoke about filling SIR enumeration forms, about the kids’ health and other small talk. She and the kids sounded cheerful,” he said.
Saritha was waiting for her kids to grow a little older before going back to work, he said. “She had done a teacher training course. She could’ve been financially independent and raised her kids by herself if he had just left her alone."
*Name changed