RTC employee kills family in murder-suicide act

HYDERABAD: Suspecting his wife’s fidelity, a 32-year-old mechanic attached to the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) killed his wife and parents and later committed suicide at his residence in Malkajgiri Saturday.

Atluri Balaji left a suicide note accusing his wife of two months Prassana (26) of infidelity. She was working at a private Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) firm in the city.

According to police, Balaji had a huge argument with his parents, Nageswar Rao (60) and Vijayalakshmi (55), when he returned to his home at Anand Bagh colony on Friday night.

He later strangled his wife with a plastic rope and then killed his parents who were in deep sleep in another room before hanging himself from the ceiling. The incident came to light when Rao’s brother, who runs a grocery store opposite to Rao’s coconut supply store near Bandamysamma temple in Malkajgiri, saw that he had not opened his store that morning and called his house.

When his repeated telephone calls went unanswered, he went to Rao’s house, broke open the doors and found the family members dead. Police said that Balaji was working as a mechanic at the Miyapur bus depot. His marriage with Prasanna was a second one for both.

“After marriage, Balaji started suspecting Prasanna’s character when she talked to other men over the phone frequently,” inspector Venkateswarlu said. Police have booked case of murder under IPC section 302 and shifted the bodies for a postmortem.