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Parents held for AP girl's 'sacrifice'

Shireen in Hyderabad

The Rangareddy district police on Tuesday solved the case of human 'sacrifice' on the outskirts of Hyderabad with the arrest of the parents of the victim.

Superintendent of Police M V Dinakar Prasad presented the mother of the hapless child at a media conference on Tuesday night. The remorseful mother narrated the incident and said that while she held her youngest daughter to the ground, her husband Pagadala Das slit the little child's throat with a sharp weapon.

She confessed that they had perpetrated the grisly crime with the motive of extorting money from the owner of a stone-crusher unit to pay off their debts.

"It was my husband and I who killed our three-year-old baby girl, Vennela. After we took her to the premises of the crusher, I firmly held the baby while my husband performed the grisly sacrifice," Balamma told newsmen.

The district police chief said that the investigation into the case revealed that Das and Balamma killed their youngest daughter at around 0400 hours on Monday and placed her body on the crusher machine "with the fond hope of extorting money from the owner".

He said that both the parents of the victim were arrested and the police was investigating the role of some of the relatives of the couple in the incident.

Giving details of the case, the superintendent of police said that the couple had borrowed Rs 50,000 from a contractor, Narayana Reddy in November 1998.

"The couple still owed about Rs 25,000 to Narayana Reddy. Due to non-payment of the dues, Narayana Reddy had even locked the house of Pentaiah and was pressing for repayment. Pentaiah also came to Taramathipet (the village where the human sacrifice incident was reported) on Sunday afternoon demanding the money. The parents of Vennela preferred to sacrifice her. They spared the eldest daughter as she was already getting ready to work and earn," Dinakar Prasad said.

The official said that the accused worked on this sinister plan, in view of an earlier incident in the crusher unit.

In a case of accidental death in the crusher plant, an old man E Ramulu (75) died. The then owner of the crusher paid a compensation of about Rs 30,000 to the victim's family.

"The parents of the girl planned to get similar compensation from the new owners of the crusher," he pointed out.

He said that the crusher unit at Taramathipet employed a large number of workers, mostly from the Wadder community.

The crusher was originally owned by one Subhani who sold it to Malakondaiah and three others on July 1 this year.

When the owner came there, the uncle and father of the girl demanded 'compensation' for the killing of the girl as 'human sacrifice'.

Initially, the parents of the victim tried to mislead the police by telling them the concocted story that their daughter was missing from around 0300 hours on Monday and that her body was discovered at the crusher after a frantic search.

However, the police which picked up some holes in their story promptly took them into custody and interrogated them. The parents broke down and confessed to the killing.

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