The premises of the Arya Vysya Bhavan in Hyderabad wore an empty look on Sunday morning as police began swarming the building, situated less than 200 metres from the Khairatabad metro station.
Housekeeping staff at the premises are visibly uneasy and reluctant to speak, even as on the third floor, the yellow 'crime scene' bands by the police have blocked off access to the room number 306.
This is where the body of Maruthi Rao, the main accused in the caste killing of 24-year-old Pranay Perumalla in Telangana in 2018, was found on Sunday morning.
P Mallikarjun, the receptionist at the Bhavan, said, "He had come yesterday (Saturday) at around 6.30 pm and booked a room for himself and checked in. This morning, at around 7.30 am, his driver knocked on his door and after he did not get any response, he alerted us. Subsequently, the driver broke open the door and we found the body."
The receptionist also said that the rooms and lodging facility is exclusively for people from the Vysya community only.
"Earlier, he used to come here regularly, but he had stopped coming here for the past two years," he added.
Was Maruthi worried about case?
Maruthi Rao was accused of paying Rs 1 crore to a contract killer in September 2018, to murder Pranay, who was married to his daughter Amrutha. Rao was opposed to the inter-caste marriage of his daughter, a dominant caste woman from the Vysya community, with Pranay, a Dalit man from the Mala community.
Rao was presently out on bail after a court quashed a case under the Preventive Detention (PD) Act against him, his brother Sravan, and several others as the police failed to file a chargesheet within the stipulated time. Rao was staying at his Miryalaguda home since then.
According to officials investigating the case, Maruthi was worried about the case and felt that he might be convicted.
Reliable sources told TNM that Rao, who was consulting a local lawyer from Nalgonda district, was not happy with the defence being presented in the court, and had travelled to Hyderabad to meet with an advocate practising in the High Court.
Rao and his driver had gone out at around 8.30 pm on Saturday to have dinner, following which he returned to his room. He asked the driver to be ready with certain documents pertaining to the case by 8.30 am on Sunday.
However, on Sunday morning, he did not receive any calls. Maruthi Rao's wife and other relatives also tried to contact him but to no avail. Following this, the driver broke open the door.
"On receiving information, we rushed to the spot and shifted the body to the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) for an autopsy. Investigation and clues collection are underway. We will register a case under 174 (Suspicious death) of the Criminal Procedural Coded (CrPC)," Saifabad SHO Saidi Reddy told TNM.
Police are also collecting information about other people who checked into the Bhavan and the purposes of their visit.
Family says no internal dispute
Meanwhile, when the body first arrived at the mortuary at OGH, the family members of Maruthi Rao who arrived at the spot, got into a minor scuffle with the media.
The family didn't want visuals of the members expressing grief to be captured by the media. speaking to TNM, Maruthi’s brother Sravan said he and his brother were briefly in jail together over the murder case but had severed all contact since May 15. Sravan says he was named in the case as four years ago he had given a strict warning to Amurtha, asking her to call off her relationship with Pranay.
"The girl, in her weak emotional state, named me a conspirator in the case. I have nothing to do with the murder,” he said. Sravan did not respond when asked if he disagreed or was angry with his brother, Maruthi Rao, allegedly hiring a contract killer to murder Pranay. "We never discussed it afterwards within the family," he added.
Speaking to media outside the OGH mortuary, Sravan refuted media reports that suggested property disputes among the two brothers.
"We don't have any differences or conflict over property," said Sravan, who claimed that he got to know of his brother’s demise only when the driver, Rajesh, called him Sunday morning.
“All these rumours are deliberate, I believe that he has was under a lot of pressure and anxiety, with the matter in the court coming to end. The police had informed us that they are giving us the chargesheet on March 27 and there was very less time to hire advocate and file a counter... we were in a tense situation," he added.
“Maruthi was under pressure”
The chargesheet for the case was filed in June 2019 and the final framing of charges was to be expected on Tuesday, March 10, at the Nalgonda district Court. "They are expecting a death sentence as the case is watertight," said a senior police officer to TNM. "Maruthi Rao knew it is a tight case and that he cannot get away. He must have been under tremendous pressure.”
Though this is police theory, it has to remembered that the police had faced severe criticism for not filing the chargesheet within 90 days, which is the stipulated time. Though the crime happened in September 2018, the chargesheet was only filed in July 2019. The police had booked four of the accused under the Preventive Detention Act and lodged them at the Warangal Jail. The delay in filing of chargesheet had led to Maruthi Rao and others securing bail eight months after their arrest, in August 2019.
The trial was to begin a week after March 10 and the judgement was expected a week later, the officer added.
Asghar Ali, the third accused in the case, who is presently serving a life sentence at the Ahmedabad jail over the assassination of Haren Pandya, has also been brought to Hyderabad for the trial.
"There was pressure on Maruthi Rao as Asghar Ali had threatened to turn approver in the case. He is serving a life sentence and becoming an approver won't help in any way. There was such a kind of pressure on Maruthi Rao... Ali wanted to get some money," opined the officer.