Hyderabad: Blackmailed by friend, teen plotted mother’s murder

HYDERABAD: A week after cooking up a story that her mother went missing and even lodging a complaint, Rachakonda police formally arrested 19-year-old degree student P Keerthi Reddy and her friend K Shashi Kumar for allegedly murdering her mother Rajitha at their residence in Hayatnagar on October 19.Police said Shashi, who knew about Keerthi’s physical relationship with her friend Bal Reddy, blackmailed her and attempted to extort Rs 10 lakh. Keerthi succumbed to the pressure and agreed for the murder plan so that as the lone child, she would inherit the family property and share it with Shashi. Cops also arrested Bal Reddy for allegedly sexually exploiting Keerthi, when she was a minor and getting her pregnancy terminated with Shashi’s help.When her truck driver father Srinivas Reddy was out of the city on work, Keerthi, a Degree student, let Shashi into the house in the night when her mother was lying down in the hall and looking at her phone. “She sprinkled chilli powder in her mother’s eyes and switched on all lights to make it difficult for her to open the eyes. Keerthi then sat on her mother and held her tightly, while Shashi strangled her with a towel,” Rachakonda commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said on Thursday.The duo then dragged the body into a bedroom and stayed in the house for three days till foul smell started emanating from it. On October 22 night, the duo wrapped the body in a bedsheet and dumped it on railway tracks at Rammannapet in Shashi’s Ertiga car. They burnt the bedsheet and rope near Nagaram.Later, Keerthi called Bal Reddy’s father from Rajitha’s phone and spoke to him posing as her mother. “Posing as Rajitha, she told Bal Reddy’s father that she was going to Nalgonda for medical check-up and requested him to let Keerthi stay at his house for a few days,” Bhagwat said.On October 23, Keerthi went to Bal Reddy’s house and stayed there till October 25. Meanwhile, Keerthi told her father and relatives that she went to Vizag. She also told some relatives that her mother left home after Srinivas Reddy quarrelled with her in an inebriated condition. Srinivas Reddy returned home and found the door locked. He told Keerthi to return immediately. On October 26, Keerthi lodged a police complaint, saying that her mother was missing and her father used to harass her mother in drunken condition.Meanwhile, Bal Reddy’s father informed Srinivas Reddy that Keerthi was at his house for a few days. When grilled by her father and police, Keerthi confessed to have killed Rajitha with the help of Shashi.Police booked a murder case against Shashi and Keerthi, two separate cases under Sections 376 (2) (n) (rape), 312 (causing miscarriage) of the IPC against Bal Reddy and Sections 376 (2) (n), 385 (extortion) of the IPC against Shashi, but both were also booked under POCSO Act too.