Hyderabad: P Rajkumar, who allegedly killed six people, including his wife and two young sons, in Rangareddy district and was on the run since, was found dead on Monday, July 13, in Penjerla village of Kothur mandal in Rangareddy district, which is his maternal uncle’s village.
Future City Police Commissioner Tarun Joshi addressed the media shortly after the body was found, stating that the police received a 100 toll-free number call, where the caller had informed about an unidentified body lying in that village.
“We knew the clothes he was wearing and his physique when he committed the crime based on inputs, and when our clues team got there, they could identify the body belonging to the accused. A herbicide named ‘display’ was found near the body. Consuming it may have been the cause of his death,” Joshi speculated.
He said that Rajkumar first went to the house of the victim whose family had filed a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, where he killed her grandmother and mother, then threatened the minor and drove her to his house, where he killed his wife and two sons. He then took the minor victim to a minor irrigation tank in the village located just 200 metre away from their house, where he killed her as well.
All the six murders happened within a span of 30 minutes, as per reports.
Joshi also mentioned that the knives used to kill the minor was different from the one he used to kill the other five victims. He said the sequence of events were being investigated.
He also revealed that Rajkumar had the habit of betting online, for which he maintained 16 sim cards and used multiple cell phones, which resulted in him in incurring a debt of more than Rs 2 crore, and he was mentally disturbed by that.
Since Monday morning, July 13, reports began to emerge that Rajkumar was caught by the police after consuming a pesticide, that he was admitted to a hospital and was undergoing treatment. All those speculations were laid to rest after his body was finally found, after the police had declared Rs 5 lakh reward to anybody assisting in his capture.
The scene of Rajkumar’s death reveals a bottle of that pesticide that was found lying beside his body. It is still not clear if he died by suicide. However, blood coming out of his ears and nose, and broken teeth points towards something extra-judicial.
Rajkumar, a resident of Daivalaguda village in Shabad mandal of Ranga Reddy district, was arrested under the Protection of stringent sections as per the POCSO Act. Reports had also alleged that the Shabad police had taken Rs 10,000 to dilute the case, by enabling lenient sections that helped him secure bail in 10 days.
On July 10, he went on a killing spree, stabbing the 17-year-old, her mother and maternal grandmother as well as his wife, Sarita, and his four-year-old son and his one-and-a-half-year-old son. The weapon was recovered from one of the crime scenes.
After committing the crime, Rajkumar called his father and confessed to the crime. His father then approached the Shabad police and informed them about the alleged confession.
It is suspected that the case might be a motive behind the murders. Investigators believe the six murders took place within a span of nearly two hours, between 11 pm and 1 am.
Stalked 17-year-old, demanded divorce from first wife
Rajkumar and his wife, Saritha, had a love marriage in 2018, despite belonging to different castes and him being five years younger than her.
Rajkumar’s sister-in-law told media that he constantly pressured Saritha for a divorce and threatened to kill her.
“He often brought up YouTuber Vaishnavi’s murder case. He told her that when police could not do anything in that case, he would definitely go scot-free,” the sister-in-law said. Vaishnavi was a 19-year-old YouTuber who was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband in March this year.
The 17-year-old girl was their neighbour. According to the first information report (FIR) registered at Shabad Police Station under the Future City Commissionerate, her mother alleged that the 35-year-old Rajkumar had been harassing her daughter for the past year.
He would insist she speak to him on the phone and obstruct her whenever she travelled to her college in Shamshabad. He had even started threatening to kill the girl if she did not speak to him.
As a result, the complainant stopped her daughter from attending college and kept her at home for six months. Rajkumar also installed a CCTV to monitor the movements of the complainant’s family, the victim’s mother alleged.
On May 16, the complainant took her daughter to her college in Shamshabad for her intermediate first-year exam. As her daughter exited the college, Rajkumar allegedly grabbed her hand and tried to drag her away.
Frustrated, they approached the police the same day. A case was registered under sections 78 (stalking) and 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) read with section 12 (sexual harassment) of the POCSO Act.
Follow on Twitter | Edited by Veena Nair | | 
