Police had said that Sanjay Kumar Yadav carried out nine murders to cover up the murder of a woman related to a family.
Sanjay Kumar Yadav, accused of killing nine people from a family and dumping their bodies in a well in the Warangal district of Telangana, was sentenced to death on Wednesday by the District’s First Additional Session judge, Warangal, K Jayakumar. Police had said the man carried out nine murders to cover up the murder of a woman related to the family.
Warangal police arrested the 24-year-old on May 25, four days after the nine bodies were recovered from the well. The police had produced a 475-page charge sheet and lined up 67 witnesses to prove their case against the defendant. The court completed the trial within 36 days of receiving the charge sheet, Telangana Today reported. However, the accused can go to the High Court to challenge the death penalty.
It was the second month of the coronavirus shutdown and the peak of the migrant worker crisis on May 21, when four bodies of a family of West Bengal migrant workers were found in an agricultural well in the village of Gorrekunta in Geesugonda mandal de Warangal (Rural). At the time, police suspected that the family committed suicide due to financial problems caused by the closure.
Police sought the help of a forensic team, deployed sniffer dogs and began an investigation. On the second day, five more bodies emerged from the well. The suspicion of mass murder was confirmed when the forensic team found scratch marks on the bodies, indicating that the bodies were dragged into the well. Six special teams were formed to solve the case.
On the first day, the police recovered the bodies of Maqsood, 48, his wife Nisha, their two-year-old daughter and a relative, Bushra Khatun. On the second day, the police recovered the bodies of Maqsood’s two sons, a friend of the family, and two other men who worked in the jute bag factory where the family worked and lived.
Investigations and CCTV footage led police to Sanjay, who is said to have confessed to killing nine people, six of whom were from a single family. Sanjay, a native of Bihar, had worked in Warangal for the past six years and was in a relationship with Rafiqa, 37, Nisha’s niece. On March 6, the couple headed to West Bengal to meet with the Rafiqa family to discuss the marriage. Police said Sanjay gave her buttermilk mixed with sleeping pills, strangled her and threw her off the train.
He then returned to Warangal and told Nisha’s family that Rafiqa had gone to a relative’s home in West Bengal. Nisha did not believe Sanjay’s statement about Rafiqa’s whereabouts and threatened to file a complaint with the police about his missing niece.
Police said that on May 20, Sanjay visited Maqsood’s home to attend his son’s birthday celebrations and mixed sleeping pills in the food consumed by six family members and three guests. Once the nine people fell unconscious, Sanjay dragged each of them to the agricultural well near the factory between 12:30 and 5 a.m., according to investigating officials. He left with their cell phones after confirming that everyone had drowned.
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