Hyderabad: Nearly seven months after a Bhavani Nagar resident died following a New Year’s Eve gathering, his family has approached the National Human Rights Commission and senior Cyberabad police officials seeking a fresh investigation, alleging that forensic findings contradict written statements given by the event’s organisers.
Yengala Sravan Kumar, son of the deceased Yengala Pandu, said his father died under suspicious circumstances after attending a colony get-together on December 31, 2025, at the Bhavani Nagar community hall in Gajularamaram, under Jagadgirigutta police station limits. Around 16 to 17 colony members attended the gathering, with food prepared by committee members. Sravan said he was travelling in Kerala at the time and learnt of his father’s death only the next morning, after his family brought Pandu home without informing him.
The case first made headlines around January 1, when local reports said a group of around 17 friends had gathered to ring in the new year with biryani and liquor at the Bhavani Nagar Welfare Association hall. Several attendees fell ill with vomiting and severe discomfort after the meal, with 15 people hospitalised at a private facility in the area. Pandu, then 53, died during treatment. Police at the time said food poisoning or spurious liquor were both possibilities, and samples of leftover food and liquor were sent for forensic analysis.
That analysis has now resurfaced as the flashpoint in the case. The family says the Forensic Science Laboratory report detected Alprazolam along with ethyl alcohol in Pandu’s viscera samples. Police have told the family this combination is typically associated with toddy consumption, but Sravan said organisers and attendees had signed a written declaration that no toddy was served at the gathering, and has demanded to know how the drug showed up in the report if that declaration is accurate.
Sravan has also questioned why no professional cooks were hired for the event, alleging committee members prepared the food themselves, and claimed his father was brought home unconscious rather than taken to a hospital, with doctors declaring him dead only the following morning. He described Pandu as a retired general manager at Karvy Stock Broking Limited, an active social worker and treasurer of the local temple committee, adding that he had no major lifestyle illnesses and regularly accompanied his wife, who undergoes dialysis three times a week.
Jagadgirigutta police have maintained that the illness was not confined to the deceased. A sub-inspector at the station said around 15 attendees fell ill with vomiting, and that investigators had found Pandu had a pre-existing heart condition that may have made him more vulnerable than others at the gathering. Police said they would seek legal opinion before proceeding further.
Sravan has asked police to invoke Section 302 (murder) and Section 328 (causing hurt by poisoning) in the case, sought custodial interrogation of the organisers, and asked the Telangana Anti-Narcotics Bureau to audit chemical stocks at an industrial unit allegedly linked to the organisers, in an effort to trace the source of the Alprazolam.
