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Journalism of Courage
Late ON Friday night, the Warangal Police shot dead three persons accused of throwing acid on two girls. The girls, K Swapnika and T Pranitha, were engineering students. S Srinivas, an engineering drop-out, and his two friends, B Sanjay and P Hari Krishna, were arrested by the Warangal district police on Friday and were paraded before mediapersons. The police claim that the three accused were shot dead in self defence as they had tried to attack the police and escape. According to the police, the trio were taken to a place near Muvunur where they had hidden the motorcycle used during the incident. But as soon as they neared the vehicle, the accused whipped out a revolver and knives hidden in the motorcycle and tried to attack the police.
S Srinivas, a jilted lover, is the main accused in the case and his two friends were riding pillion on the motorcycle. He roped in his two friends by offering money. On Wednesday evening, the two girls were returning home on a two-wheeler when the trio intercepted them. When Pranitha, who was driving, slowed down, Hari Krishna allegedly threw the acid on Swapnika.
Swapnika suffered 60 per cent burn injuries and is battling for life in a private hospital. Doctors fear she might lose her vision. Pranitha escaped with 30 per cent burns as she was wearing a helmet. Srinivas told the police that Swapnika was his friend and that he had lent her some money. But apparently she rejected his proposals of love and recently started ignoring him. He confessed to the police that she was also seeing a classmate and that he wanted to take revenge by totally disfiguring her face.
Warangal SP Sajjanar said that Srinivas showed no signs of remorse. “He in fact thinks he had done the right thing to teach Swapnika a lesson. He claims that her boyfriend and his friends had even attacked him once earlier. We are investigating his claim of lending her money,” he said.
The police are unable to explain why all the three were taken to the spot to recover a motorcycle and how the trio managed to break free from the police cordon and reach for weapons allegedly hidden in the motorcycle. Though Srinivas allegedly whipped out a country-made revolver the other two only had knives with which they allegedly attacked a police party armed with rifles and service revolvers.
There are no takers for the encounter story but the incident drew widespread appreciation and condemnation alike for the police. Thousands of school and college students, mostly girls, gathered outside the Warangal SP’s office on Saturday afternoon to congratulate SP V C Sajjanar and presented him bouquets. The government moved in quickly to contain the damage with Home Minister K Jana Reddy seeking a report from DGP S S P Yadav on the incident.
Shocked parents of all the three youths refused to claim the bodies after the post-mortem was conducted at the Warangal government hospital. Brahmamurthy, father of Sanjay, a second year BSc student, said that his son was innocent but was killed by the police just because he was a friend of the main accused Srinivas. “They were supposed to produce them in court today. Instead they took them out last night and murdered them,” Brahmamurthy said over the phone from Warangal. Hari Krishana’s father, P Chammaiya, said the crime, his son had committed did not deserve such a punishment. S Diwakar, father of Srinivas, did not go to the hospital to claim his son’s body till late evening.
Actor-turned politician Chiranjeevi said both the incidents were painful. “It was a heinous act by the three youths when they threw acid on the girls. It is an equally heinous act by the police to shoot them in that alleged encounter. People are celebrating because they have lost hope in police cases and courts and this kind of swift justice is what they like to see,” he told mediapersons.
