Hyderabad: A large crowd gathered at the Shadnagar police station on Saturday and demanded that the four persons accused of the gang-rape and murder of GHMC assistant veterinary surgeon Dr P. Priyanka Reddy be handed to them to face instant justice.
The mob, including women and school children from nearby villages, began forming from the morning and took the police personnel by surprise. The police put up barricades and, at one time, tied the gates with handcuffs to prevent the protesters from forcing their way in.
With the mob pelting stones and footwear, the magistrate came to the police station and remanded the four accused persons to 14 days of judicial custody. The accused — Mohammed alias Areef, J. Shiva, J. Naveen and C. Chennakeshavulu — were later taken to the Cherlapalli Central Prison.
Given that the protesters comprised women and school students, the police could not take strong action to disperse them. With the number of protesters growing, more police personnel were brought in.
Raising slogans of “we want justice” and “hang them immediately”, the gathering of youngsters walked towards the main gate by pushing past the barricades.
Some of them even tried to climb the gate but were dissuaded.
The crowd sat in front of the police station demanding that the accused be hanged or handed over to the public who would kill them. They said the accused were being fed and provided medical care by the police.
Instead, the accused deserved to be hanged in public, they said.
One angry girl said, “Leave them to us for five minutes. We will torture them to death. Girls and women want safety. Such people should be punished severely. It will make those who want to do something to women think again.”
The police periodically tried to disperse the crowd, which only moved a few paces but continued its protest. Commercial establishments located close to the police station were open in the morning but were ordered shut by the police as the crowd grew in size. People climbed the nearby buildings to see the drama.
A team of doctors later visited the police station and completed the medical tests on the accused. However, the doctors had to scale the wall to get inside the police station. Shadnagar Mandal Executive Magistrate Pandu Naik was accompanied to the police station by the police and taken inside through the rear gate, where he remanded them.
The accused were taken out of the police station in mini-buses to be shifted to the Cherlapalli jail. The public to tried to stop them and came in front of the vehicles. The police managed to clear a path for the vehicles with a lathicharge. The angry mob ran behind the buses and hurled footwear and stones at them. Under a tight police escort, the accused were taken to the Cherlapalli Central Prison in Hyderabad.
Many people even gathered at the prison and demanded immediate hanging of the accused and justice to the family.
When contacted about the locking of the police station, Shamshabad DCP N. Prakash Reddy said, "The public was trying to barge into the police station. As a lock was not available immediately, handcuffs were used. However, they were removed immediately."
