CCTV footage helps solve murder case

HYDERABAD: For the second time this week, closed circuit television (CCTV) footage helped police in swiftly solving another crime case in the city. Seven persons were rounded up on Tuesday by the Habeebnagar police for the murder of 19-year-old degree student K Shiva Kumar.
On Sunday evening, Shiva Kumar was found strangled to death at his grandparents' house at Sitarambagh.When the incident happened the grandparents, Pochaiah and Yellamma, who run sand businesss, were not at home.
During the preliminary probe, police found out that the victim's neibhbour, a retired assitant sub-inspector (ASI), had a CCTV camera installed in front of his house. The examination of the footage revealed that several people had visited the house during the absence of Shiva Kumar's grandparents. Police noticed two persons entering the house at about 3.45 pm on Sunday and leaving with some bags. A crime team identified them as Thakur Ramesh Kumar, a city dossier criminal (CDC) of Mangalhat police station, and Mohamed Ahmed, a notorious property offender from BS Maktha.
A manhunt was launched and the duo were nabbed from their houses in the city on Monday night. During interrogation, the duo confessed to having committed the murder. They said they also stole valuables from Pochaiah's house based on the instructions of K Srinivas, a trolley driver working for Pochaiah.
Police immediately arrested Srinivas from Habeebnagar. On interrogation, he confessed to having hatched a plan to steal valuables from his employer's house to clear debts. According to Hyderabad commissioner Anurag Sharma, trolley driver Srinivas had been working for Pochaiah for the past nine years and he had borrowed Rs eight lakh from his employer a few years ago for construction of his house.
Srinivas was finding it difficult to repay the loan and during his frequent visits to Pochiah's house, he had noticed that his employers had a huge quantity of gold and silver at home. He decided to rob his employer and discussed the plan with his friends, D Suryanath, a real estate broker, Ch Shravana Kumar, a member of an orchestra, D Raghu, a contract employee at Vidyuth Soudha, and G Raghavender, an attender at an office in Ameerpet. His friends in turn approached K Ramesh, a history-sheeter of Mangalhat, and he convinced Thakur Ramesh Kumar and Mohammed Ahmed to join them in commission of the offence.
Accordingly, Thakur and Ahmed went to Pochaiah's house on a stolen Pulsar bike when Shiva Kumar was alone posing as cable TV technicians on Sunday evening. After Shiva Kumar allowed them to enter the house, Thakur strangled him using cable TV wire and the duo escaped with the gold, silver and cash.
The fingerprints found at the scene of offence matched with Thakur's and the blood sample with Ahmed's blood. Police recovered 80 tolas of gold, 78 tolas of silver and Rs five lakh cash from the accused. However, one of the offenders, Ramesh is still on the run. The culprits would be produced in court on Wednesday.