Hyderabad: Social activists and advocates demanded that a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry needs to be held on the murder of Central Crime Station (CCS) constable E Pramod Kumar, and the alleged encounter of the constable’s accused murderer Riyaz in Nizamabad.
The activists under the banner of ‘Concerned Citizens Forum’ who held a fact-finding on the two killings, termed the encounter of the alleged rowdy-sheeter Sheikh Riyaz on the intervening night of October 19 and 20, as a custodial death aimed at covering-up a larger counter-currency racket operating in Nizamabad.
Speaking with the media at Basheerabagh Press Club on Friday, October 31, the activists part of the fact-finding committee including Sarah Mathews, Khalida Parveen, Mohammad Abdul Taj, advocate Firasath among others spoke about the various aspects of the case, pointing-out the anomalies in the claims of the Nizamabad police.
Constable Pramod’s murder
The activists who spoke with various stakeholders including Pramod’s family members, said that he was in fact off-duty on October 17, when he had come to attend to a medical emergency of one of his family members.
“When Pramod was about to go to the hospital, he received a call from a higher officer, informing him about Riyaz’s location, and asking him to go there immediately. Why did the police put Pramod’s life at such risk,” Khalida Parveen questioned.
The activists wondered why no backup was put in place, and why an off-duty constable without any weapon was sent to apprehend Riyaz.
The activists also wondered why there was no witness to Pramod’s murder, when it happened near the dry fruits and juice centre in a busy road buzzing with activity all the time in Nizamabad town.
The activists said that the police were having the CCTV footage of the dry fruits shop, and that the police said they saw what appeared to be three individuals, which was not clear in the video.
“Nobody either saw the murder taking place, and nobody recorded any video of the act, which is surprising,” Sarah Mathews exclaimed.
The activists said that according to the eye-witnesses who saw the body of Pramod being dumped on the road.
The counterfeit currency angle
Activists claimed through their interactions with their sources revealed that it was on Riyaz’s Burgman (White), that he, the constable, and the constable’s nephew who survived the attack went on, when the crime happened.
The activists claimed that this was the bike which Riyaz had recently bought, after he suddenly discovered Rs 3 lakh in counterfeit currency notes in a vehicle he recovered from Asif, a loan defaulter (the person who helped the police capture Riyaz), as the former was working as a recovery agent for a non-banking financial institution in Nizamabad.
According to Riyaz’s family members, Asif demanded Riyaz to handover his money and also the bike. However, Riyaz had already spent Rs 2 lakh by buying the bike and for other expenditure.
“Riyaz cleverly converted Rs 2 lakh of it into legitimate digital money through UPI platforms like GPay and PhonePe. He did this by borrowing small amounts from local people and repaying them with the fake notes, effectively laundering the counterfeit into real funds without raising immediate suspicion,” Concerned Citizens Forum noted.
The activists said that Pramod entered the scene, and negotiations started between Asif and Riyaz ,with constable Pramod playing the role of the negotiator for the bribe money demanded by the police from Riyaz. First they demanded Rs 3 lakh, then it came down to Rs 2 lakh, and finally agreed to be settled for Rs 1 lakh as ‘protection money’ to supposedly settle the matter with Asif’s gang.
According to those aware of police negotiations between the police and Riyaz over bribe amounts, the activists claimed, have informed them that Asif’s counterfeit currency gang ambushed and attacked Riyaz during the last negotiation to eliminate the threat he posed, but he escaped from there. They also claimed that constable Pramod was either deliberately killed or by mistake, to silence him as a witness to the racket.
Based on the wound patterns analysed by them , the fact-finding committee observed that Pramod was struck hard with a sharp metal object by the killer, after which they took him on Riyaz’s Burgman, initially intending to either take him to a hospital, or to hide his body.
“But upon realising that he died during the transport from massive blood loss, and fearing the evidence it would leave, they dumped the body on Vinayak Nagar Road, where the police later recovered it,” the fact-finding committee stated.
The activists said that eyewitnesses who observed the body being dumped were refusing to come forward and depose because of their deep apprehension of police reprisals and how the judiciary would handle the case.
Riyaz’s encounter!
According to the activists, the police’s version of Riyaz hiding inside a totaled lorry’s cabin was far from real, and that Riyaz was taken into custody, tortured and killed in cold-blood, before three bullets were pumped into his dead body.
“Wouldn’t someone being portrayed as being such a dangerous criminal, not run away to a far away place after perpetrating such a high-profile murder,” asked Firasath.
The activists said that those who performed the last rites of Riyaz saw that his neck was so broken that they had to tie it with the body, both his hands were broken, and there were injuries on his legs.
“How can a person whose hands were broken, snatch a revolver to try and shoot a policeman,” asked Khalida Parveen.
She also expressed her suspicion at the way nobody was allowed to enter the fourth floor of the seven-storey hospital building, and why it was all fortified with heavy police deployment, not even allowing his family members to enter.
The fact-finding committee saw that the room where the encounter being claimed happened, had a heavy iron entrance, which would be impossible to breach for anyone.
“There is no CCTV footage of Riyaz being brought to the hospital. The white burgman is missing, the vehicle in which the money was found by Riyaz is missing, the murder weapon allegedly used by Riyaz against Pramod is missing, and the weapon allegedly snatched by Riyaz during the encounter is missing in the investigation till now,” Firasath disclosed.
“Despite clear evidence from locals that he had escaped an ambush and wasn’t the killer, suddenly they announced Rs 50,000 bounty for information on Riyaz’s whereabouts following the discovery of Pramod’s body, portraying him as a dangerous fugitive, even though our findings from confidential sources suggest he was already in police custody or possibly dead from torture by that point,” the fact-finding committee observed.
“This bounty announcement conveniently coincided with the elevation of Asif- the real villain in the counterfeit racket- as a hero, further solidifying the cover-up,” the fact-finding committee added.
Third degree torture and sexual abuse of Riyaz’s family
The activists alleged that Riyaz’s mother, wife, daughter and son were subjected to third-degree torture by the police, in an attempt to extract Riyaz’s location.
“They treated this innocent family like a terrorist family, inflicting acts too heinous to describe in detail but which included putting chilli powder in their eyes, including the minor children, stretching the legs of the women (his mother and wife), pouring chilly powder into their private parts, hanging the children upside-down and leaving frogs and lizards in their under garments, and sexually abusing them,” the fact-finding committee alleged, noting that the women and children were held captive from 10 pm on Friday, October 17, till 1 am on Sunday, October 19, only to be kept on house-arrest the next day, with two women police officers sent to their home.
“The phones of the mother and wife were confiscated on Friday. While wife’s phone has since been returned, the mother’s phone remains in police custody, potentially holding evidence of communications that could expose the truth,” the activists alleged.
“Is it a crime to be the family member of a criminal,” Khalida Parveen questioned.
Riyaz’s criminal history
The advocates part of the fact-finding committee stated that the 61 cases filed against Riyaz were mostly petty cases and civil disputes filed by those whose vehicles were seized by Riyaz, and none of them even qualified to brand him as a rowdy-sheeter, and a hard-core villain.
According to the activists, Riyaz had no cases against him before taking up the job of a recovery agent.
However, they also pointed out that Riyaz used a dual system to make his earnings at the NBFC where he was working, by receiving commissions from the company for surrendering the recovered vehicles, and also negotiating payments with the loan defaulters and quietly returning their vehicles to them, so that they could avoid auction of their otherwise seized vehicles.
The activists also revealed that on the unfateful day of the constable’s murder which ended Riyaz’s life abruptly, pushing the family into an abyss of horror, he had packed his bag to go to Hyderabad, as he had found a new job as a driver there.
The activists questioned why Riyaz wasn’t produced before the magistrate within 48 hours of being in the custody of the police.
Probe Asif
Strongly demanding that the role of Asif be probed in the alleged counterfeit currency racket, the activists questioned how he could be assured a gallantry award and an assured police constable job for the ‘charpat’ (cut) he sustained during the arrest of Riyaz as being claimed by the Nizamabad police.
Protect Riyaz’s family
The foremost of the demands of the activists was that Riyaz’s family be protected from any further torture, Rs 5 crore for the victimised family, a government job for his wife, and full guarantee for Riyaz’s children’s education.
They also demanded an immediate re-postmortem of Riyaz’s mortal remains, in view of the claims of torture inflicted on him.
“Register FIRs for custodial murder under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Section 103 read with 36, assault on modesty under section 74, and extortion under section 316. These demands are not just for Riyaz’s family but for every citizen to restore faith in the system, and we make them defensively for CBI handling,” the activists demanded, cautioning the people that “this could happen to anyone.”
The larger issue
Drawing a similarity between the Alair encounter in April 2015 and Riyaz’s encounter in 2025, Sarah Mathews questioned why the Congress in Telangana, which had made a huge issue out of it in the 2015 case, was now doing the same thing which its predecessors did.
“Rahul Gandhi spoke about an egalitarian India where everybody would be treated as equals. But what we are witnessing here in Telangana is sectarian politics. We have seen the violence in Jainoor, where people were left to starve for 2 months after the violence there. The home ministry has totally gone to the dogs,” Sarah Mathews remarked.
Also pointing out Riyaz’s claimed encounter at the Nizamabad Government Hospital, she questioned why people burst fireworks by holding the banners of Lawrence Bishnoi and Nizamabad police commissioner Chaitanya.
An unexplored aspect
As per news reports, also being reiterated by those in the inner political circles of Nizamabad; right after the killing of constable Pramod, Riyaz went to seek help from a local Youth Congress leader, who was also arrested by the police.
He was reportedly let-off after a senior-most Congress leader belonging to the minority community from the constituency had ordered the police to release the Youth Congress leader.
The activists strongly believe that all these allegations could only be probed if an unbiased investigation is done in this case, which they felt, was possible only through a CBI inquiry.
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