Telangana: Hajipur serial rapist-killer Marri Srinivas Reddy sentenced to death

HYDERABAD: A special court in Nalgonda on Thursday gave the death penalty to Marri Srinivas Reddy after convicting him of raping and killing three minor girls in Hajipur village in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district.The 28-year-old lift mechanic had raped and killed three girls, aged 11, 13, and 17. While the 17-year-old victim was killed in 2015, the other two were killed last year. He was given the death sentence in two cases and life imprisonment in another case. The verdict has come barely nine months after he was arrested in the case on April 30, 2019. The trial began on October 14.Since August 2019, this is the third death sentence that a fast track court in Telangana has pronounced in a rape and murder case. Only on January 30, a fast track court in Adilabad had sentenced three men to death for raping and killing a tribal woman at Yellapattar in Kumarumbheem Asifabad district.Court examined 101 witnesses, DNA evidenceFirst additional district and sessions judge SVV Nath Reddy, who was designated Pocso court judge and fast track court judge, pronounced the punishment in the Hajipur case and asked the convict if he had anything to say. Refusing to admit to his guilt, Srinivas Reddy said: “I have been forced to admit to a crime which I did not commit. The police tortured me. I have to take care of my aged parents.”Srinivas broke down in the court soon after the judge pronounced the verdict.Besides death, the judge also sentenced him under various sections of the Criminal Procedure Code to 57 years in jail and a fine of ?5,000.The court examined 101 witnesses and also took into account DNA evidence. The police filed three different chargesheets in the three cases.Special public prosecutor K Chandrasekhar had asked for the death penalty treating the crime as ‘rarest of rare’. Legal counsel for the convict, provided by the legal services authority, Rabindranath Tagore, defended Srinivas Reddy saying that he was not even at the scene of the crime when it was alleged to have been committed.Srinivas Reddy was arrested a few days after a 13-year-old girl’s body was found in a well in Hajipur. A forensic examination had confirmed that the girl was raped and murdered.(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)