The Andhra Pradesh police on Thursday slammed reports in certain sections of the media in the Madanapalle ‘double murder’ case, which claimed that it was Alekhya who killed her younger sister. Dubbing the reports as “rumours” and “baseless”, Deputy Superintendent of Police Ravi Manohara Chary on Thursday asked media channels to maintain restraint and not sensationalise the case further with their speculations.
On January 24, Sai Divya (22) was found dead in her bedroom upstairs, while her elder sister, Alekhya (27), was found lying in a pool of blood in a puja room. It is suspected that their parents Purshotham Naidu and Padmaja killed their two daughters believing in “special powers” after a “calling from god.”
The case shocked many as the couple were academically accomplished. Padmaja worked at a corporate school and is a gold medalist in MSc Mathematics, while Purushotham is an associate professor, Chemistry. The couple were taken into custody on Tuesday and are being held in the Madanapalle sub-jail.
Speaking to TNM, the DSP said, “We have not mentioned anywhere in the police report that it was Alekhya who killed her sister. The claim is absolutely false.” The DSP further said that the police are still conducting their investigation into the crime.
Attributing it to police reports, some media outlets had claimed that Alekhya had turned excessively spiritual and had experimented with the ritual of ‘rebirth’ by killing her pet dog initially. The reports said that when Sai Divya fell ill, their parents believed that she was possessed by an evil spirit, and Alekhya convinced them of getting rid of the evil by beating her sister to death with a dumbbell. She then asked her mother to do the same ritual to her and bring both of them to life.
Responding to this, DSP Ravi Manohara Chary said, “In the crime scene, only four persons were present, out of which only two are alive. Obviously there are no CCTV cameras inside the bedroom. The parents are not in a state of mind to make any statement, so I do not know how this rumour has been spread.”
Meanwhile, doctors who examined the couple said that the family suffered from “shared delusion”, a mental disorder characterised by sharing a delusion among two or more people who are in a close relationship.
Police have collected CCTV footage and are verifying if there was an outsider, under whose influence Alekhya and Sai Divya were killed.
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