Former Congress MP Sircilla Rajaiah’s daughter-in-law and three grandsons were found charred to death at his residence in the city under mysterious circumstances in the wee hours of Wednesday, police said. Hours later, the Congress leader, his wife and son were taken into police custody for questioning.
Following the incident, 62-year-old Rajaiah, who was nominated by the Congress as its candidate for the Warangal Lok Sabha be-election slated for Novemer 21, was replaced by former Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana as the party’s candidate.
Rajaiah’s daughter-in-law S Sarika and three grandsons seven-year-old Abhinav, and twins Ayaan and Shriyaan, aged three, died on the spot due to burn injuries, police said.
Warangal City Police Commissioner G Sudheer Babu said Rajaiah, his wife Madhavi and son Anil Kumar were inside the house when the incident took place on the first floor of his two-storey residence in the Hanamkonda area.
“We have taken them to the police station for examination (questioning)...no one has been arrested. After collecting evidence (post-mortem report) and facts, we will take further action,” he said.
Senior police officials said the circumstances that led to the incident are not clear and they were probing it from all angles, including that of suicide and murder. The four bodies have been shifted to a government hospital for post-mortem examination.
Anil and his parents live on separate floors of the house. Asked if it was suicide or murder, Sudheer Babu said: “It is not that easy to come to a conclusion at this stage immediately. We have a lot of ways to find out, and definitely we will probe the case in a scientific manner. There is a clear evidence that the death has been due to burn injuries...whether the injuries were caused by themselves or someone else caused it...we have to ascertain it through the scientific way.”
Asked if deaths were due to fire mishap, he said: “There is still no clarity. We cannot say anything as of noe. FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) experts are looking into it. Once they complete their investigation, we can say some thing. We are investigating from all angles.”
Earlier, Telangana North Zone Inspector General, V Naveen Chand who visited the spot, said that a gas cylinder was found in Sarika’s bedroom. Her parents were in the process of lodging a complaint, and hence, Rajaiah and the two others were taken for questioning. As per the contents of the complaint, a case would be registered, he said. Sarika’s mother and sister alleged in their native Nizamabad district that her in-laws “tortured her and killed her”. “My sister cannot commit suicide...she was tortured and killed,” said Sarika’s sister.
Incidentally, a criminal case was filed against Rajaiah, Madhavi, Anil and another woman, at the Begumpet women’s police station in Hyderabad in April 2014, following a complaint lodged by Sarika, who alleged that her husband and in-laws had been harassing her for dowry. Sarika had also staged a sit-in protest outside Rajaiah’s house over the issue at that time.