30-year-old Yakaiah succumbed to his injuries on Saturday, nearly a week after he was allegedly set on fire by his fiancé’s boyfriend in Raghunathapally mandal, Telangana.
Yakaiah who was supposed to get married to Aruna from Madharam village on February 21 was attacked by an unidentified person, who doused him in petrol and flicked a match stick at 11.40 pm on February 18. He was attacked outside his residence in Kanchanpally when he was on the phone.
In the attack, Yakaiah suffered injuries on his shoulders and hands, and was rushed to Warangal government hospital. He was later shifted to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad.
During the investigation, the police found that the perpetrators were none other than the fiancé Aruna and her boyfriend Aruri Balaswamy. The accused are also related to each other.
Police said that on the day of attack, Aruna phoned Yakaiah and asked him to come outside claiming that his network was weak and she couldn’t hear him. As Yakaiah stepped out, a person who was standing beside the compound wall, threw petrol at him and flicked the match stick, before Yakaiah could comprehend the situation and react.
According to police, Aruna and Balaswamy were in a relationship for the past two years, but they could never reveal their relationship to their family.
Aruna had rejected 10-15 wedding proposals in the past. At her parents’ insistence Aruna was forced to accept the wedding proposal of Yakaiah. Police said that as Aruna wanted to break off the wedding, she allegedly conspired with her boyfriend and attacked the groom’s father Samuel on two separate occasions. Samuel was allegedly beaten up by persons.
“The duo thought that the blame will come on the bride’s side family, and it may result in breaking off the marriage. However, despite being attacked twice, Samuel went ahead with the marriage and didn’t even complain with the police,” narrated Raghunathapally SI P Ranjith Rao.
He said, “As their plan failed on both the occasions, this time they planned not just a physical assault but a fatal attack on the groom.”
“They thought that since nobody had suspected them for so long, even after plotting and executing two attacks, they assumed that this time too they will escape and went on to eliminate Yakaiah,” he added.
The person who committed the attack on Yakaiah was Balaswamy’s relative.
“Within a day we were able to crack the case, based on the call data records. The accused- Aruna’s call data record had Balaswamy’s number, who she had called frequently during the time of the incident.”
Police have arrested all the three persons involved in the case.