Hyderabad: A Telangana court on Monday sentenced a man to death and awarded life imprisonment to six others convicted for killing a 23-year-old Dalit man, allegedly at the behest of his father-in-law in a sensational case of hate crime in the Nalgonda district of Telangana, people aware of the matter said.
The second additional sessions court dealing with Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Nalgonda district convicted the seven accused and awarded death penalty to Subhash Sharma, and imposed a fine of ₹15,000 on him and ₹10,000 each on the six other convicts, after a protracted trial of five years and nine months, involving examination of forensic evidence, post-mortem reports and testimonies of witnesses.
The case dates back to September 14, 2018, when the victim, Pranay Kumar, 23, stepped out of a government hospital after a medical check-up of his five-month pregnant wife Amrutha Varshini, 20, in Miryalaguda town in Telangana’s Nalgonda district. Sharma, who was allegedly hired for ₹1 crore by Varshini’s father Tirunagari Maruthi Rao, a prominent Vysya businessman in the town, attacked Kumar, a Dalit, with a machete, killing him on the spot. The incident was caught on CCTV cameras, leading to a public outcry.
On the same day, the victim’s father-in-law, Tirunagari Maruthi Rao, and seven others — Subash Sharma, Asghar Ali, Abdul Bari, MA Kareem, Shravan Kumar, Samudrala Shiva and Nizam were booked under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. A 1,600-page charge sheet was filed on June 12, 2019. Rao died by suicide in March 2020 while the trial was underway, allegedly “due to the fear of conviction”, police said.
Pronouncing the judgment on Monday, the court said the murder was carried out at the behest of Varshini’s father, who was against his daughter’s marriage to a Dalit Christian.
Hailing the verdict, Kumar’s father Perumalla Balaswamy said, “We have lost a lot with Pranay’s murder. This verdict should serve as a deterrent to such heinous crimes.”
IPS officer and commissioner of Hyderabad Assets Monitoring and Protection Agency (HYDRAA) Ranganath, said the accused in used advanced technology to execute the crime. “Initially, there was a lot of confusion in the case, and Maruthi Rao also pretended to be unaware of any involvement,” he said.
Terming the judgment a victory for people’s movements and justice, social activist and chief of Progressive Organisation for Women (PoW) V Sandhya said, “The police and courts should continue their commitment to delivering justice in similar cases.”