The Telangana Nalgonda police are now hoping that Pranay's murder case be heard in a fast-track court in the district. To get the ball rolling, the police intend to file charge sheet soon and write to the State government to urge the High Court, who will then take a final call on the matter, said AV Ranganath, Superintendent of Police, Nalgonda.
Speaking to TNM, Ranganath said, "We want the case to be finalised early and not wait for the 90-day deadline to file the charge sheet. We will seek the intervention of HC to set up a fast track court. To initiate the process, we will first write to the state government, who will, in turn, write to the High Court. The HC will then direct the district court to fast-track the case."
On September 14, Pranay was brutally murdered by his father-in-law Maruti Rao, who had hired a contract killer for Rs 1 crore. Rao belonged to Vysya caste and was upset that his forward caste daughter, Amrutha had married a Dalit from the Mala caste.
In the video of the murder, which has since gone viral, the alleged contract killer, Subhash Sharma could be seen attacking Pranay from behind as he walked out of Jyothi Hospital in Miryalaguda, with his wife and mother. The killer struck Pranay on his head and neck with a knife. He died on the spot. Sharma was later picked up by the Telangana police from Bihar.
Speaking about the status of the ongoing investigation, the SP said the six accused are presently in remand and will be further interrogated. "We still have a lot more evidence to collect. We need reports from the forensic and technical team for better legal scrutiny before filing the charge sheet. Usually, charge sheets are filed within 90 days but we hope not to wait for that long," he added.
Clearing the air on allegations by various political and activist groups that the police has gone easy on the TRS MLA Vemula Veeresham and helped cover his role in Pranay's murder, Ranganath clarified by saying that the two events are unrelated.
"There are two events in this case - pre-marriage and post marriage. The pre-marriage events are not related to the present case. We cannot implicate someone based on an unrelated issue. We have gone through the call data of the MLA before letting him off the hook. If some other agency proves that Vemula has a role and the police have tried to bail him out, I would go to the extent of resigning from my job. If CBI or anyone takes over the case, they can look at the call data of Vemula," said Ranganath.
Questions about the role of the TRS MLA in Pranays murder came to the forefront after Amrutha told the media on September 15 that the MLA had previously threatened Pranay’s family.