Hyderabad: Patancheru police arrested three members of an interstate gang from Maharashtra in the murder case of a 35-year-old cab driver, N Rajasekhar of Rasoolpura. The accused had booked his taxi from Secunderabad and later stole his car after strangling him to death in the vehicle.
Based on the complaint lodged by Rajasekhar’s family, a missing case was registered at Begumpet police station on Sept 11. Later, Patancheru police registered a murder case after the body was found in the roadside bushes on Sept 12. During the course of the investigation, the identity of the victim was established, and police added sections 310 (Dacoity) and 61(2) (Criminal conspiracy) to 103(1) (murder), read with 3(5) (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the BNS. By verifying the CCTV footage at different places and through cell phone data analysis, police identified five accused and arrested three of them, Ghodake Rahul (28), Suraj Shashikanth Tawade (29), Bamble Raju Ramachandra (33), all natives of Maharashtra, on Wednesday at Patancheru.
Two more accused are still absconding. The accused were produced before the court and remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday.
On the night of Sept 10, a group of accused had hired the victim’s taxi from the city bus stop near the Task Force Office in Secunderabad on the pretext of going to Mumbai. They dumped the body near the under-construction Road Over Bridge (ROB) at the outskirts of Rudraram Village on NH-65 at around 4 am on Sept 11,” Serilingampally DCP Ch Srinivas said. “After reaching the outskirts of Rudraram near Patancheru, the accused had made the driver stop the car and then strangled him to death with a towel.