The Hyderabad High Court on Friday pulled up the Andhra Pradesh police over the slow investigation on the brutal murder of Ayesha Meera.
Ayesha Meera, a 17-year-old pharmacy student from Vijayawada, was brutally killed on December 27, 2007. Her body was found outside the toilet on the second floor of the Sri Durga Ladies Hostel in Ibrahimpatnam, where she was staying.
A two-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice Ramesh Ranganathan was hearing a writ plea filed by Shamshad Begum and Syed Yaqbal Basha, Ayesha's parents.
Meanwhile, Visakhapatnam Range Deputy Inspector General Ch Srikanth, who is heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into the case, filed a report in the court.
Ayesha’s parents had sought to know if the SIT planned to appeal the order of a lower court in Vijayawada, which rejected a petition seeking narco analysis test on some suspects.
The SIT had hit a roadblock earlier as it wanted to conduct tests on the hostel warden, Inampudi Padma, her husband Siva Ramakrishna, Ayesha’s roommates Sowmya and K Kavitha, and prime accused Koneru Satish Babu, Abburi Ganesh and Chintha Pawan Kumar.
Koneru Satish is the grandson of former Congress minister Koneru Ranga Rao.
According to media reports, the SIT wanted to conduct a narcoanalysis test and Brain Electrical Oscillating Signature Profiling Test (BEOSP) and send the results to a Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Gujarat.
However, only the hostel warden and her husband had agreed to the tests so far, after the Hyderabad High Court quelled their fears about their health being adversely affected if they take the test.
Background
In August 2008, almost a year after Ayesha was killed and after the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) took up the case, the police arrested Satyam Babu.
Satyam Babu was arrested in a cell phone robbery case on August 17 that year and the police claimed that he had confessed to Ayesha’s murder during interrogation.
In 2010, the Mahila Sessions Court in Vijayawada sentenced him to life imprisonment for Ayesha’s rape and murder.
Ayesha’s parents had earlier alleged that relatives of minister Koneru Ranga Rao were involved in the murder and that the police had pinned the crime on Satyam Babu to misdirect the investigation.
In April 2017, Satyam Babu was acquitted by the Hyderabad High Court. The court also ordered action to be taken against the police officials who investigated the case.
The government had then decided to re-investigate the case and constituted the SIT.