Hyderabad: CCTV pics help nab murderer

Hyderabad: Footage from CCTV cameras installed in residential areas has helped the Hyderabad police solve the case of sexual assault and murder of a seven-year-old boy at Balapur.

The colour of the footwear worn by the accused and his peculiar hairstyle that was seen in the CCTV footage led the police to Omer bin Hassan, 25, the accused.

The boy was murdered in Wadi-e-Mustafa under the Balapur police station limits on the night of May 8. He had gone to purchase a soft drink and was found dead, sodomised and with injuries on his face.

Omer, hailing from New Huda Colony in Wadi-e-Mustafa of Jalpally village, is a labourer. Police said Omer saw Yaseen walking towards a shop with a Rs 50-note. He waylaid the boy, took the money and led him to a secluded area with compound walls where he sodomised and murdered him. As the probe saw no progress after two days, Task Force police began analysing the footage of CCTV cameras installed in the vicinity. One of the cameras captured Omer running away, his footwear in the hands.

“The camera could only capture the rear view of Omer, in which it was seen that he has a peculiar haircut. One of the witnesses said that the suspect ran away with his footwear in his hands. During field inquiry, he was identified as Omer bin Hassan. The hairstyle and footwear were matched and he confessed to killing the boy after sodomising him,” said Task Force Additional DCP S. Chaitanya Kumar.

The officer said that as soon as the boy was taken to a dark area, he got frightened and resisted Omer. When he raised an alarm, a woman praying in a nearby building flashed a torchlight from her phone to try and see what was amiss.

Omer held the little boy’s head, hit him with a boulder and killed him at that time.

The Additional DCP said that the identification of Omer was possible only through the footage of the CCTV camera installed by locals.