A blood thirsty psychopath unleashed terror inside a Chennai-bound APSRTC bus when he went about stabbing passengers randomly in the early hours of Thursday. Three persons died and another passenger was injured seriously in the attack.
The macabre incident took place near Bheemulavaripalem integrated checkpost in Tada mandal of Nellore district, close to Tamil Nadu border. Though the police suspected the role of either ‘psycho’ Samba or ‘psycho’ Antony, both of whom are on the run, the bus driver, the only person to have a glimpse of the killer, is unable to say for sure that it was Samba, or Antony, leaving the investigators wondering whether yet another psycho killer was on the prowl.
It was around 5 a.m. and most of the 48 passengers travelling in the Bhadrachalam depot RTC bus were asleep. Suddenly, one of the passengers rose from his seat, pulled out a knife and began attacking the passengers.
He stabbed passengers in seat numbers 2 and 5 near the door and then went on to stab the passenger in seat no 16 and another one, even before anyone could realise what was happening. One of the passengers did resist the attack, but in vain. All the victims were sitting in aisle-side seats. On hearing the cries and commotion, driver Ramanaiah stopped the bus and the next moment, he saw a person clad in a black jeans and red shirt jump out of the bus.
As the driver reached out to the victims, he found them lying in a pool of blood. By then, the killer had vanished under the cover of darkness.
Soon, those travelling by the same road gathered and managed to shift all the victims to Sullurpeta area hospital, where the three were declared brought dead. The condition of the fourth person is said to be critical.
“We are yet to ascertain where the killer boarded the bus,” police said. Enquiries revealed that two persons bought tickets for Chennai at Nellore bus station and police suspect one of them to be the killer.
The deceased have been identified as Ajay Biswas, 36, of Malkangiri in Odisha, A Niranjan, 28, of Kacherimitta area of Kavali town and K Rambabu of Korrapatipalem village in Prakasam district. The injured, Ramesh, belongs to Ulavapadu village in Prakasam district.
According to the description given by the bus driver and a few other passengers, which the police said was “quite vague”, the killer, who appeared to be slim-built, could be aged around 22 and was 5.2 feet in height. “He did not utter a word while on the killing spree, which made it difficult to ascertain whether he belonged to Andhra Pradesh or another state,” an investigator said. “By the time I could catch a glimpse of him, he jumped and vanished,” Ramanaiah said.
Investigators said though they suspected either Samba or Antony (who is believed to have entered Andhra Pradesh from a neighbouring state recently), the bus driver, who was shown their photographs, was unable to identify the killer as either of them, which indicated that there could be another such psychopath on the prowl. However, sources said police have not yet concluded that the attacker was neither samba nor Antony.
“Clearly, there is no motive and we are also trying to determine the kind of knife he used,” another police officer said. Suspecting that the killer belonged to Tamil Nadu, local police contacted their counterparts in the CID wing of the Tamil Nadu police and are in touch with them. “We have sent 20 teams to all the nearby areas to trace the killer,” police said.
One of the deceased passengers, Niranjan, was working as a lecturer at a private college at Chirala in Prakasam district.
He met with the tragic end while going to Chennai for submitting his research papers. Another victim, Rambabu, was a trader and going to Chennai to collect his dues. Police are yet to find out the details of Ajay Biswas.