The Hyderabad police had arrested a serial killer identified as Maina Ramulu who was accused of killing 18 women over 24 years. The police said he was targeting women after his wife eloped with another person.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar on Tuesday announced the arrest of Maina Ramulu, a labourer, for killing two women.
Ramulu, a resident of Borabanda, Hyderabad was arrested in a joint operation by Hyderabad and Rachakonda police while investigating the cases of two missing women.
The police found out that the accused, 45, was involved in 16 murders and has a total of 21 cases including thefts cases registered against him. In 2011, Ramulu had escaped the Erragadda Mental Hospital prison section when going through life imprisonment in one of the cases.
The accused used to target women near toddy fields after trapping them by offering money for sex and would after killing them, would rob them of the valuables found on them.
A missing complaint was lodged with the Jubliee Hills police station on January 1 by Kavala Anthaiah that his wife Kavala Venkatamma who is a labourer went missing on December 30.
The Task Force, North Zone team, Hyderabad city began tracing the woman and on January 4 Venkatamma’s dead body was found near a railway track at Ankushapur village, in the limits of Ghatkesar police station. While investigating the police with the help of CCTV footage found that Venkatamma went with the accused in an autorickshaw in an isolated area at Ankushapur village. After killing her with a boulder, the accused fled from the spot with her valuables.
Police said that the woman’s face was burnt using her body and was identified to be that of Venkatamma using her cell phone that was recovered with her body.
The police also said that on December 30, Ramulu had allegedly murdered an unidentified woman aged between 35 and 40 years after trapping her at Bala Nagar toddy compound that comes under Cyberabad police commissionerate.
According to police, Ramulu hails from Sanga Reddy district. His parents married him at the age of 21-years old. His wife later eloped with another man.
"Since then he bore a grudge against women and committed serial killings of women," the police commissioner said.
Earlier, Ramulu committed 16 murders between 2003 and 2019 and in 2009 he was convicted for life imprisonment. While being in prison he escaped with 5 others from Erragadda mental hospital on December 12, 2011.
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He committed 5 more murders after escaping from jail and was rearrested in 2013. However, he was released after he got bail from the high court in 2018.
The police chief said the accused did not change his attitude and committed two more murders.