Five people were arrested by the Nalgonda Police on Tuesday for allegedly murdering persons and passing it off as accident deaths claim insurance money. Police say the gang preyed on families with sick persons or with those struggling with alcoholism, took insurance policies in their names, and later killed them.
These murders were portrayed as road accidents to claim insurance money. The police learnt after interrogating the accused that they allegedly committed four murders between 2013 and 2017, and had two more murders planned ahead. Police found the gang to have siphoned off Rs 1.59 crores from insurance companies with an aggregate road accident claim of over Rs 3.36 crore.
D Raju, an insurance agent, is the main accused in the case. He is a resident of Rallavagu Thanda in Nalgonda. “The case came to light after a tip-off,” said AV Ranganath, Nalgonda Superintendent of Police. “This is for the first time that a case like this has come to light in the Telugu states,” he added.
D Koti Reddy was a resident of Kondrapole, who was living with alcoholism and had a troubled relationship with his family, say police. His wife Harika was in a relationship with another accused in the case, Kondal. Police say the duo was approached by Raju in 2020 with the prospect of eliminating Koti Reddy after taking an insurance policy in his name.
An insurance policy was taken for an amount of Rs 1.2 crore and premiums were paid twice, between May 2020 and June 2020. “Only the signature on the bank account was genuine, rest all details on the policy documents were forged,” said Ranganath.
In the meantime, Raju struck a deal with Siva, a resident of Miryalguda, and his friend Sai. Both Miryalguda and Sai were allegedly assured Rs 1 lakh each.
On February 25, 2021, Koti Reddy hired an autorickshaw to return home from a liquor shop. But the vehicle was driven by Siva. Sai then joined Siva and they together took Koti Reddy to an isolated area near Kondrapole. Police say Reddy was held tightly by Sai, while Shiva allegedly struck huge blows to his chest leading to his death.
All the while Raju was following them in a tractor. Siva and Sai allegedly dumped the dead body on the road as Raju drove over it. "They had it all thought out. They had a witness ready, and even made tyre marks on the road similar to a genuine road accident. They had observed details that the police look for to determine the causes of road accidents. There have been four murders and one natural death which was projected as an accident. Suspicion should have been raised during postmortem of the bodies. Police on the ground should have also been able to identify that the road accidents were being faked,” said the officer.
The Telangana Police have now approached the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), the regulatory body on insurances, seeking details on rural policyholders with errant payment of premiums. “They have availed policies from all major private insurance companies,” said Ranganath.
The officer also added that the gang had plans to carry out two more murders. “A policy was taken in 2017 and the plan was to be executed the following year, but Siva was in jail for a while and so couldn’t carry out the crime. They had planned two murders in the next two months. We have prevented their murders,” said Ranganath.
Earlier in 2019, insurance company Bharti AXA had filed a complaint in Haryana after they noticed that some clients had taken insurance policies barely months before being killed in road accidents. Three people were arrested for faking natural deaths of terminally ill cancer patients from low-income families as road accidents, and over a 100 are accused in the case reported Hindustan Times.