HYDERABAD: Advocate V Surender Rao appearing for the Telangana government before the judicial commission argued that footage from several CCTVs, statements of a worker at the puncture shop and wine shop near Tondupally toll plaza identifying the accused and other scientific evidence was sufficient to connect the four accused to the crime. Surender Rao also pointed to the recovery of liquor bottles, the victim’s undergarments and other belongings seized from the place where she was allegedly raped.
The footage collected at the toll plaza shows the victim crossing the road, two persons using her scooter, after which she disappears and her burnt body is found the next day at Chatanpally. Prior to this, the last telephone conversation of the victim with her sister, expressing fear due to some persons, supports the offence.
This incident, followed by the sequence of events in the form of CCTV footage, statements of petrol pump staff, identification of the lorry owner P Srinivasa Reddy and Reddy identifying the accused from the CCTV footage, links the accused to the offence. He identified them, as he had employed them and knew them for quite some time.
Justice V S Sirpurkar, chairman of the commission commented, “frankly speaking, we are not able to see anything in the footage to show that the accused carried away the girl. Can you precisely show from the footage, any of the accused carrying her? According to you, she was carried away from the toll plaza and raped.”
Rao submitted that physical features may not be clearly visible, but the continuity of the footage links the chain of the events from the time she disappeared. “Further beside the toll plaza there is a service road, which is a dark area, which is not visible in the footage.” Rao argued that Reddy volunteered to show the accused to the police party, following which police picked up all the four accused and arrested them.