Pranay murder: Nalgonda police file 1600-page charge sheet against eight accused

Eight persons have been charge-sheeted on Wednesday for the murder of Dalit youth Perumalla Pranay Kumar, who was killed for marrying an upper caste woman. The Nalgonda police have filed a 1600-page charge sheet detailing the sequence of events that led to the planned murder of the youth by hiring a contract killer.

The police have named T Maruthi Rao as the prime accused for hatching the plot to kill Pranay, a Dalit from the Mala community for marrying his daughter Amrutha who belongs to the Vyshya caste. 

Along with him, Asghar Ali who was acquitted of terror charges, Mohammad Abdul Bari his associate and Subash Sharma the hired assassin from Bihar who committed the murder have also been charge sheeted. The Nalgonda police have also charge-sheeted Maruthi Rao's brother Sravan Kumar and his driver, Samudrala Shiva. Abdul Karim, a local Congress leader and transport operator who was the point of contact for Asghar and Bari, has also been charge sheeted. 

The Nalgonda police told Times of India reporter U Sudhakar Reddy that the charge sheet details how Maruthi Rao had struck a Rs 1 core deal to murder Pranay.

Police said that Bari was paid Rs 8 lakh, Asghar Rs 6 lakh and Kareem Rs 1 lakh in July, two months before the murder that took place in September.

The 24-year-old Dalit man was hacked to death by Subash Sharma when he along with his wife Amrutha and mother were coming out of a private hospital, following a medical check-up in Miryalaguda. The entire incident was caught on camera. 

The Nalgonda district Superintendent of Police AV Ranganath told TOI that the eight accused were charged under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder) of IPC, section 25 of the Arms Act and various sections of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. “Apart from oral evidence and statements of witnesses before the magistrate, we have submitted footage of CCTV cameras at the hospital, tollgates, call data record, cellphone tower data, forensic reports, will deed and WhatsApp messages as evidence.”

The crime took place on September 14, 2018, and it took the police nine months to file the charge sheet mainly due to delays in getting the Forensics report.