HYDERABAD: A 35-year-old farmer from Ranga Reddy district allegedly murdered six people, including a 16-year-old POCSO case victim, her mother and grandmother, before killing his own wife and two sons in a series of attacks in Shabad town and his nearby native village on Friday night. According to police, the accused drove around six kilometres from his village to Shabad town at about 10.45 pm. He went to the home of the teenage girl, whose family had filed a POCSO complaint against him in May, accusing him of stalking her. When the girl’s 42-year-old mother opened the door, he allegedly fatally attacked her with a knife. He then entered the house and killed the girl’s 60-year-old grandmother while she was asleep in bed before forcing the teenager into his car. “Surprisingly, he did not harm the girl’s 20-year-old mentally challenged sister, who was also at home,” a Shabad police official said. The accused then drove to a lake in his village, where he allegedly stabbed the girl to death and left her body near the bund before heading home. Police said he entered his house at 11.21 pm and left just six minutes later after allegedly slitting the throats of his 31-year-old wife and their two sons, aged four years and 18 months, while they were asleep. After the killings, the accused called his father, who lives in Shabad, and told him what had happened. He then fled the village in a car. Police were alerted immediately, and the bodies were sent for post-mortem examination. Shabad police said that after the POCSO case was registered in May, the accused went into hiding and sought anticipatory bail in June from a local court in Shabad. The court allowed his petition and, on its direction, police released him on a personal bond, as the alleged offence carried a maximum sentence of less than seven years. “The accused is absconding, and we have launched a manhunt to trace him. At this point, we do not know what might have triggered him to kill the girl, her family, and his own family members,” Future city commissioner Tarun Joshi said.
