HYDERABAD: After the Nalgonda special court pronounced its judgement in the honour killing case, HYDRAA commissioner AV Ranganath, who was the SP of Nalgonda district when the incident had taken place in 2018, said that this was an honor killing. Contract killers and a lot of money was involved in this, he said.
The A2, Shubash Kumar Sharma, who was sentenced to death, had brutally murdered Pranay for money, Ranganath said and termed the accused clever people as they knew how to manage the system. “Initially, we were also surprised why these people were involved in the case.”
“We took a lot of care to protect the witnesses as there was a chance of them being manipulated. We also changed the draft charge-sheet several times before submitting it in the court,” he explained.
“We have used technical evidence, including ‘gait pattern’ in nailing the criminals. The ‘gait pattern’ refers to analysis of a person’s walking style. This helps in identifying the accused.
As the the face of Subhash Kumar Sharma (A2) was not visible in the CCTV footage, the police used ‘gait pattern’. As per his walking style, the police identified him and arrested him.
“We sent his gait pattern to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for further confirmation. We did a meticulous and detailed investigation,” Ranganath elaborated.
“Sharma was arrested in Bihar. While he was travelling by train, our police team went there before he had reached the destination and taken him into custody. The other fled to different states. But we tracked them down and arrested them within four days,” the HYDRAA chief said.