Within two days of the gruesome murder of three members of a family in the district, Nellore town witnessed another chilling incident in which a woman and her daughter were killed for gain by three youngsters, two of whom are minors.
The woman’s husband was injured in the attack by the assailants, who were caught by the people in the n e i g h b o u rhoodand thrashed.
Police had a tough time controlling the angry crowd, which wanted to give an ‘instant punishment’ to the accused.
The shocking double murder took place at Ramalingapuram here on Tuesday afternoon.
According to SP BV Ramana Kumar, three miscreants-- an interior decoration worker Sk Imtiyaz and two minors--knocked at the door of Asireddy Dinakar Reddy, who runs the Vagdevi Pharmacy College at Brahmadevi village in the district.
Reddy’s wife Shakuntala (43) opened the door as she identified Imtiyaz, who earlier did some interior decoration work at the house.
As soon as she opened the door, Imtiyaz and two others forced their way in, threatened her and her daughter Bhargavi with knives and told them not to raise alarm.
Bhargavi was a third year MBBS student of Narayana College. The intruders forced them to pick up gold jewellery and other valuables from the house and tied the booty in a cloth.
“Then they stabbed Shakuntala, possibly to avoid identification. When Bhargavi tried to resist the attack, she too was stabbed,” the SP said. Both of them died on the spot.
Even as the assailants were trying to flee, Dinakar Reddy and his friend, Praveen Kumar Reddy came to the house for lunch around 2.30 pm.
“Reddy noticed the trio fleeing the house with valuables and tried to catch them. The accused attacked him with knives and as Dinakar Reddy raised an alarm neighbours gathered.
Imtiyaz tried to flee from the house, but the other two ran inside and locked themselves in the washroom,” police said.
People chased and caught Imtiyaz and also locked the house from outside to keep the others in. Imtiyaz was thrashed by people before police arrived at the place.
Police picked up the other two accused from the house, but people prevented them from shifting the two to the police station. They tried to deliver ‘instant justice’, but police stopped it.
After one-and-a-half hours, when police tried to shift the accused again, the angry mob attacked the accused and beat them up. Police took the two to IV Town police station with difficulty.
Police said the three, one of them an intermediate second year student, have many vices and committed the crime for easy money.
“Imtiyaz told the other two that only the women will be in the house and planned the attack,” police said.
The double murder took place within 48 hours of the killing of three members of a family at Somalaregadi village of Puthaluru mandal of the district due to political differences.
Sources said the district SP himself is investigating the triple murder case.