Hyderabad: He had a hearty dinner on Wednesday night, slept well and woke up to have his breakfast and then lunch in the high security cell in the Warangal central prison on Thursday morning.
“I raped and killed three girls,” Marri Srinivas Reddy, 28, said to a query by the jail superintendent while he was being admitted to the prison. When the prison official asked him why, he just stared at him and chose not to reply.
Srinivas, accused of abducting, raping and brutally killing three minor girls in cold blood in Hazipur of Yadadri Bhongir district, which has sent shockwaves across the state, has been classified as a “dangerous” prisoner, and segregated from other in the prison. He is being handcuffed inside prison while CCTVs and a guard outside his cell are monitoring him round the clock.
“When he was being admitted to the jail yesterday, I asked him what his offence was. He replied that he had raped and killed three girls. When I asked him why, he was blank and did not reply. I found his behaviour and body language very abnormal and therefore he has been segregated from other prisoners and lodged in the high security cell. He is being closely monitored,” Warangal jail superintendent N. Murali Babu told DC.
Mr Babu said that going by his behaviour, Srinivas was showing no signs of remorse. “We have written to the MGM Hospital (Warangal) and psychiatrists from the hospital will be here to examine him in a day or two. Even otherwise, he will be examined every 15 days,’’ Mr Babu said. He said the jail houses close to 50 prisoners, including those accused of rape, those arrested under POCSO Act and those who cheated women under the pretext of marrying them.
“Such prisoners, who are accused of rape of minor, are segregated and classified as dangerous. We handcuff them as they can pose a threat to the jail staff. We lodge them in separate cells as there is a possibility of their being attacked by fellow prisoners,” said Director-General of Prisons, V. K. Singh.
He said those accused of raping minors are perverts and need to be segregated from other prisoners. “Prisoners like Srinivas Reddy are highly unpredictable and we take our own precautions,” Mr Singh said.
Though he gets a newspaper at his cell, the prison staff ensures that any report on him is cut out.
Sources who interrogated Srinivas soon after he was taken into custody say he is addicted to liquor and ganja. “Normally, such people have no sense of remorse,” the sources said.
