Spotlight
Trigger warning: the following article contains potentially distressing material; please avoid reading if you feel disturbed by violence. S Raman, circle Inspector of Sadashivanagar in Telangana’s Kamareddy district, had just wrapped up a tele-conference with his colleagues on December 14 morning when he was informed about a woman’s charred body being found in their jurisdiction.
The body was recovered from the bushes along a mud road off Padmavajiguda crossroads-Banswada State highway, nearly 145 kilometres north of the State capital, Hyderabad. The crime scene abutting a low-depth irrigation canal was on the fringes of Bhompalle village under Sadashivanagar police station limits.
Investigators had a tough time ascertaining the victim’s identity as the body was charred with only remnants of burnt cloth and a pair of silver anklets being retrieved. A few feet away, a piece of coir rope was found. “There were, however, clear car tyre marks on the mud road. It appeared that a four-wheeler had come to the spot and driven in reverse before leaving the place,” Raman says, recalling the crime scene.
Going by the body’s condition, police surmised the crime could have been committed between midnight and the early hours of December 14. They first suspected that the perpetrators may have come to the spot from Banswada, but ruled this out due to the thick wooded areas along that route, which would have made disposing of the body easier for the perpetrators.
Police then turned their focus to the Padmavajiguda crossroads which joins National Highway 44 covering the Hyderabad-Kamareddy-Nizmabad stretch in Telangana. This highway has two toll plazas — Bhiknoor on the Hyderabad side and Indalvai on the Nizamabad side, nearly 17 km and 40 km respectively from the crime scene. A CCTV camera installed by a chicken centre owner offered the first crucial lead.
Between the midnight of December 13 and 5 a.m. of December 14, seven cars had passed from Padmavajiguda crossroads to Banswada. Of those, only one car retraced its path. Naturally, this particular vehicle raised suspicion, but the video footage was not clear. Three specialised police teams scrutinised video recordings from numerous cameras for hours. They uncovered another lead, indicating a car similar to the one in the initial video footage had passed through the Indalvai toll plaza.
Within no time, they traced the owner of the five-seater sedan — M. Jagdish of Nizamabad. An employee of a private company, he said that he routinely rented out his car to a person named Ramesh in the same city. Ramesh, in turn, rented it out to Medidha Prashanth, also from the same city, on a daily basis. This information helped the police achieve a breakthrough.
A hunt was launched for Prashanth with one police team analysing his call detail records to zero in on his location, and another team verifying details of the GPS installed in the vehicle by its owner. Prashanth was finally apprehended in the early hours of December 19 while driving the same car near Gandhari crossroads on NH-44 in Kamareddy district. His mother, Vaddemma, and a minor brother were also in the vehicle.
Two others, Guglooth Vishnu and Banoth Vamshi, both about 19, from Durganagar tanda of Makloor village in Nizamabad district, were also caught, as they were accompanying Prashanth on a two-wheeler. Initially, Prashanth feigned ignorance, but later admitted to killing the woman after police presented video clips of the car crossing Indalvai toll plaza.
“Yet, his version was not convincing. He claimed that he was driving past Indalvai when the woman asked for a lift and he murdered her at an isolated place for her gold chain,” says Kamareddy Superintendent of Police Sindhu Sharma, who is supervising the investigation.
Connecting the dots
Sharma recalled that another charred body of an unidentified woman had been found at a secluded place in Chegunta police station area of neighbouring Medak district, a week prior. Chegunta is 60 km south of Sadashivanagar. “I had a hunch that the same people could be behind both murders since the victims were women, the bodies were similarly burnt, and secluded areas chosen to commit the crime,” she says.
Her hunch was proved when Prashanth’s interrogation led to startling revelations about six bone-chilling murders that he and his associates had committed. The unidentified body was that of P. Sravani, 23, while the victim in the Sadashivanagar case was her sister P. Swapna, 26. Their elder brother P. Prasad was a childhood friend of Prashanth’s.
A farmer, Prasad lived in Makloor village, 15 km from Nizamabad city, with Sravani; Swapna, another sister, 26; his mother Susheela, 55; wife P. Sanvika, 29; and eight-year-old twins Chaitrik and Chaitrika. “Prashanth’s confession that he had murdered all of them barring the mother was shocking. The cold-blooded manner in which he and his associates had killed them was even more disturbing,” Sharma says.
Everything was hunky dory between the two friends until Prasad ran into trouble reportedly following an extra-marital affair with an unmarried woman of the village back in 2016, says inspector Raman. While the relationship continued, Prasad went to the Gulf the following year in search of greener pastures. “When the parents of the unmarried woman were looking out for alliances for her, Prasad circulated some intimate photos and videos of her. The woman ended her life in the village in 2018,” he adds.
A case under Indian Penal Code sections 354-D (stalking) and 306 (abetment to suicide) was registered against Prasad, and a look-out circular issued by the police. When Prasad returned to India on November 1, 2022, police arrested him and remanded him in judicial custody. “While he was in the Gulf, Prasad reportedly gave Prashanth a loan of Rs. 3.5 lakh. After being released on bail, Prasad could not find any work in the village as there was an unspoken social boycott of his family holding him responsible for the woman’s suicide,” Sharma says.
Prasad allegedly began insisting that Prashanth repay him, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Prasad wanted to sell his house and two adjacent plots, but no villager came forward to buy the property. Prashanth suggested that he register the house and the two plots in his name, and he would, in turn, raise a loan of Rs. 5 lakh on those properties and give the money to Prasad.
Prasad allegedly transferred the properties to Prashanth. Meanwhile, he shifted to a rented house in Palwancha village of Kamareddy district. “Once the properties were transferred in his name, Prashanth thought his life would be sorted if Prasad and his family members were eliminated. He hired two 19-year-olds, Vamshi and Vishnu, to kill Prasad by paying them Rs. 60,000,” says Raman, citing Prashanth’s confession.
On November 27, Prashanth asked Prasad to accompany him, stating that he was going to meet some acquaintances who were going to raise funds for him. The duo, along with Vamshi and Vishnu, went to Gachchibowli in Hyderabad, Kondagattu in Karimnagar, and other places in the State for two days, consuming liquor intermittently. But the alleged murder plan could not be executed. On November 29, Prashanth invited Prasad to a party. This time, Prashanth, Vamshi, and Vishnu took him to Makloor in the same car. From there, they drove to a secluded place, on the outskirts of Madanpalle village, 15 km away.
“After Prasad downed two bottles of beer, Prashanth hit him on the head with a bottle. A well-built Prasad retaliated, but when the trio overpowered him, he tried to run away. They caught him and smashed his head with boulders,” says Raman.
They covered his body with mud to conceal it before leaving the place, carrying Prasad’s mobile phone with them. The next day, they visited the location. On noticing one of the victim’s legs jutting out of the mud, they dug up the soil and buried the body, he adds.
Senior police officers sent teams to Nizamabad to cross-check Prashanth’s version. They secured a video clip from Imran Steels shop in Nizamabad from where the gang purchased a spade and crowbar. The gang was also found to have bought a bundle of coir rope from a grocery store in Dichpally.
Prashanth allegedly called up Prasad’s wife Sanvika a day after the murder and led her to believe that Prasad was longing to see her but could not return home as the police had begun reinvestigating the suicide case against him.
On December 1, he drove 80 km south of Makloor, to Palvancha in Kamareddy district, and asked Sanvika and Prasad’s sister Sravani to accompany him to Nizamabad. On reaching Chandrasekhara colony in the town, he asked Sravani to get out of the vehicle and wait by the roadside until they returned.
From there, he drove to Gayatri Cooperative Bank in the city, convincing Sanvika to open an account so he could to transfer funds to her, as part of settlement of dues he owed to her husband. He made her wait there even after the bank closed in the evening.
“The car was parked outside. Taking advantage of the darkness, Vamshi got inside the dickey and hid there,” the inspector says. Around 8 p.m., Prashanth introduced Vishnu to Sanvika. While Prashanth drove the car, Vishnu sat in the front seat.
They headed towards Basara in Adilabad district via Navipet road. After traversing nearly 40 km, they reached Basara bridge. Prashanth stopped the car even as an unsuspecting Sanvika was napping in the rear seat. As per plan, Prashanth increased the volume of the music in the car. “Taking that as signal, Vamshi popped up from the dickey, tied the coir rope around her neck from behind and strangled her to death,” explains Raman.
Then, they drove half way on Basara bridge, threw her body into the river and returned to the spot where Sravani was waiting. She had no option but to wait as she did not have balance on her phone to make calls. Prashanth convinced her that Sanvika was with Prasad. He asked her to get into the car to be dropped home.
Unaware that she was walking into a death trap, Sravani got into the rear seat and gradually fell asleep. Prashanth drove towards Chegunta, south of Kamareddy, in Medak district. When he stopped the vehicle at an isolated place, Vamshi allegedly emerged from the dickey again, and strangled her to death with a rope. They headed to Vadiyaram village outskirts, dumped the body at a secluded place, poured petrol over it and set it ablaze.
The next day, he went to Palvancha and told Prasad’s mother Susheela that police were likely to arrest the family in the suicide case and asked them to shift to another location. He said Prasad was at a safe place, and then drove Susheela, Swapna, and the twins to Annapoorna lodge in Nizamabad city. “He also brought his mother Vaddemma to the lodge to keep watch on them. By then, he had revealed to her that he had murdered three of Prasad’s family,” Raman says.
Juvenile angle
Prashanth’s plan hit a roadblock when Vamshi and Vishnu did not take his calls. He then sought the help of his younger brother, 15 years old, to eliminate the remaining members of the family. On the night of December 4, Prashanth took out the twins, telling Susheela that Prasad wanted to see his children. While Prashanth drove the car, his teenage brother sat on the rear seat, flanked by the twins. This time, he headed north of Nizamabad towards Mendora police station area. He stopped at a secluded place and raised the curtains for the most gruesome execution. The teen strangled both the children. Prashanth and his brother later stuffed the two bodies into separate gunny bags along with some bricks and threw the bags from the Soan Ganga bridge into the river below.
After returning to Nizamabad, Prashanth went to the lodge and told Susheela and Swapna that the children were safe with their parents. On December 13, Prashanth met them and asked Swapna to accompany him to their Palvancha house to search for some papers. Trusting the family friend, Swapna left with them in the car. While the juvenile sat in the front seat, Prashanth took to the wheel and Vamshi hid in the dickey. After reaching Padmavajiguda crossroads, they turned right towards Banswada, stopped the car at an isolated place and killed Swapna.
The final countdown
Later, they dumped her body in the bushes along the canal on Bhoompalle village outskirts and headed back to Nizamabad. Prashanth’s final target was Susheela. To his shock, Susheela was not at the lodge when he went there the next morning. His mother Vaddemma told him that Prasad’s mother had managed to escape. Apprehending arrest, the entire gang went into hiding, frequently changing their location, only to be caught by Sadashivanagar police on December 19.
Six murders had taken place in a span of fortnight in three neighbouring districts, and the police were yet to find bodies of three victims – Prasad, his wife Sanvika and son Chaitrik. Based on Prashanth’s confession, police went to Madanapalle and exhumed Prasad’s body. Samples were collected to match his DNA fingerprinting with that of his mother Susheela.
After massive searches on either side of the river below Basara bridge, the putrefied body of Sanvika was recovered from the bushes abutting the bank. Another team scouted both sides of the Soan Ganga bridge and traced the decomposed body of Chaitrik. The bloated body of Chaitrika surfaced near Soan Ganga bridge on December 8.
Prasad’s mother Susheela, who returned home in Makloor, continues to be in a state of shock.
(If you are in distress, please reach out to these 24x7 helplines: KIRAN 1800-599-0019 or One Life +91 7893078930. One can also contact suicide prevention helpline Roshni at 8142020033/ 8142020044 between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. )
