GUNTUR: Nallapadu police on Sunday arrested eleven people, including a fake priest, and rescued two girls after they sent an SoS through the Disha helpline number 112. According to police, Nageswar Rao, the key accused, allegedly lured victims by promising to give them money, if they participated in nude pujas. He would then verbally and physically abuse them.
A week ago, Rao had asked his associates Narendra and Suresh to convince a girl to take part in a ‘puja’ in return for Rs 1 lakh. Suresh approached a resident of Atmakur in the Kurnool district who was in dire need of money. When he explained to her about the deal, she agreed to participate in the ‘ritual’.
On May 8, Suresh, along with his friends Khasim, Aravinda, Radha and Narendra, went to Kurnool and brought the girl to Guntur. Meanwhile, Narendra’s other friends brought another girl and took them to Rao’s house in Ponnekallu. During the ‘ritual’, the fake priest allegedly forced the girls to strip their clothes and reportedly abused them.
Elaborating on his modus operandi, police said Rao would keep shifting the girls to various places in Guntur and Vijayawada with the help of his assistants Ravi, Subbu, Bhaskar, Pedda Reddy and Sagar to avoid any suspicion.
However, on May 13, the girls escaped as they were being moved to another place and contacted Disha police. The local Nallapadu police rushed to the spot and rescued the girls. The police filed a case and arrested all the 11 accused and seized a four-wheeler.DGP Kasireddy Rajendranath Reddy said the Disha police acted swiftly in less than five minutes after receiving the distress call from the victims.
Stating that as many as 1.34 crore people have downloaded the Disha SoS mobile application and around 1.17 crore has registered themselves on the app, the top cop said, “We are conducting a special drive to promote the app for women's safety so that they can get help from police when in need. All women and college-going girls must install the app and register their details for their own safety.”