Finally, Nellore police have arrested the ‘psychopath’, who murdered three persons on a Bhadrachalam-Chennai RTC bus near the Tada checkpost in Nellore district in the early hours of July 26.
After producing the accused before mediapersons at Gudur on Sunday, Nellore superintendent of police BV Ramana Kumar said they apprehended him in Sunnapubattilu area of Vijayawada.
The accused, D Srinivas Rao alias Srinu (33), hails from P.Gannavaram village in East Godavari district and was working at Aditya Pharmacy in Vijayawada at the time of his arrest.
Police took him to the north side of the Gudur railway station and recovered the knife he had used to kill the three bus passengers. The knife and the clothes (a blue jeans and a blue checkered shirt) were sent to the forensic science laboratory for examination of blood stains.
The SP said that Srinivas Rao, who turned a psycopath with vengeance against a sub-inspector K Srinivasulu Reddy, currently working at the Tada police station, killed the three persons at random to create a sensation and thereby create problems for the SI in whose jurisdiction the murders took place.
Killer Psycho Nabbed in Vijayawada
Srinivas Rao got married in 2009 but deserted his wife in a few months on having differences with her. In 2010, while working in Hyderabad, he was attracted to a girl from Manubolu in Nellore district, who was doing a computer course in Hyderabad. But the girl rejected his overtures and went back to her native place.
He followed her to Manubolu where the girl’s parents approached K Srinivasulu Reddy, who was SI there, with a complaint against Rao. Srinu was arrested and lodged in the Nellore prison for about 20 days. After his release, he developed a grudge against the sub-inspector.
“On July 25, at 10:45 pm, he boarded the Bhadrachalam-Chennai bus at Ongole and when the bus approached Tada around 3:45 am on July 26, he unleashed the terror. He struck first at Rambabu, with whom he had some argument while sleeping in the bus, and then stabbed Ajay Biswas and Niranjan, who died on the spot and had even stabbed one Ramesh while escaping from the bus. After getting off the bus, he boarded a bus to Gudur, from where he went to Vijayawada by a train, Sabari Express,” the SP said.
Police, who had been looking for clues to crack the case, chanced upon an SMS received on Tada SI Srinivasulu Reddy’s mobile phone at 10:46 pm on June 16 from a mobile phone numbered 9640946911.
The message was: ‘Time Kosam Nenu Wait Chestanu. Sanchalanam Case Ante Emito Nenu Chupistanu. Inka Chala Time Undi. Appude Ayipoledu. Revenge Tisukunta. Etti Paristhitilonu Vadilipettanu. Wait and see’.
During the course of the investigation, police traced two of Srinivas’s colleagues who said they had not seen him for long and he did not turn up for work between July 16 and 25. Finally, the police zeroed in on the accused at Sunnapubattilu in Vijayawada and arrested him.
As many as 18 Sim cards of different companies were seized from the accused who was using seven mobile phones. Srinu’s father was a government employee and his parents separated from each other when Srinu was still a child and that might have had an effect on his personality, police said.
“We have registered cases against him under Sections 354, 509 and 506 of IPC. After producing him in the court, we will seek his custody for interrogation,” the SP said.