heyOn the afternoon of January 29, head constable Mustaq Ahmed and a constable Mohan of Yedapalli police station in Nizamabad, Telangana, were interrogating residents about a land dispute when they received a call informing them that a girl had been washed away in the Nizam Sagar distribution canal. The waterway ran a short distance from the ARP camp in Yedapalli mandal, off the Nizamabad-Bodhan National Highway 63.
Ahmed says that he immediately started his bike and started walking. “When we reached the spot, we saw rescue workers placing the girl’s body on the bank of the embankment,” he recalls.
The girl looked to be around 5-6 years old with a shiny bindi on her forehead. Apart from the injury on his forehead, he did not suffer any other injuries. Policemen observed that the body showed no signs of swelling, unlike most drowning incidents they investigated. “He had died just a few minutes earlier. We felt guilty that we couldn’t save him,” says Ahmed.
Both of them made some quick inquiries. They found that the 18-year-old man, P. Pawan Kalyan, was standing near a small bridge over the canal and was talking to a friend on the phone when he saw the girl floating in the canal.
“Kalyan said he screamed for help,” says Ahmed. “Venkatesh, an auto driver nearby, heard her scream and rushed to the spot. By then the girl had drifted far away.”
Venkatesh did not give up. He rode his bike on the muddy road of the dam and after about 300 metres, jumped into a 3-foot deep stream of the canal near a small gate. He caught hold of the girl and took her out with the help of others. She was unresponsive and had no pulse.
bindi girl
Police started inquiry to identify the girl. He sent a notice to all the police stations under Nizamabad Police Commissionerate to see if any complaint was filed about the missing girls, but no complaint was filed. They took the body to Nizamabad Government Hospital. Then, they registered a case under Section 194 of the Indian Civil Defense Code, 2023, which orders the police to investigate and report cases of suicide, murder, or suspicious, unnatural deaths.
While probing from nearby police stations, investigators also shared photographs and an audio message of the girl on WhatsApp groups, seeking help in establishing her identity. Three days passed without any trace. The investigation seemed to have reached an impasse – until Constable Sudhir received a call that gave away crucial details.
Sudhir was the driver of Circle Inspector D. Vijay Babu, who was investigating the case. The caller, a close relative from Mukhed, the taluk headquarters of Maharashtra’s Nanded district, contacted Sudhir and claimed that he knew the girl. He sent a photo, in which a child was seen, who looked exactly like the child found in the canal and was wearing the same clothes. The relative said the girl was from Mukhed, about 50 km from Bodhan, and had been reported missing. He said the villagers were worried and were discussing his disappearance.
Bodhan police contacted the girl’s family. Some elders and family members of the village, including the girl’s mother Ankita, reached Bodhan and identified the body. The girl was Prachi, the elder of the twin daughters of Pandurang Baburao Kondamangle, a hair salon owner. After forensic doctors conducted an autopsy, which confirmed that she died of drowning, the police handed over the body to the family. As they were preparing to return to Maharashtra, Yedapalli police started their work.
alone on a canal
Although the autopsy confirmed the cause of death as drowning, the police are puzzled as to how the girl ended up alone in the canal.
ARP Camp, often mistaken by many for a defense or research facility, is a cluster of three villages. These developed around the Nizam Sugar Factory, which was established decades earlier to process locally grown sugarcane. With irrigation from factory canals, even remote areas are covered with lush green fields of paddy and other crops. The dams along the canal – overgrown with bushes and surrounded by paddy fields – hide the distribution of water that flows just a few feet away, parallel to the road. It was strange for a girl of her age to wander away from there just like that.
“We believed someone had taken her to the canal. The question is whether she slipped into the water or was pushed,” says P. Srinivas, Bodhan’s assistant police commissioner.
The investigators started investigating the case. When they got a clue, they brought Kondamangle to Bodhan. He said his daughter had gone missing since January 29 and he had contacted the local police to trace her. Circle Inspector Vijay quoted her as saying, “We were expecting that she would come home sooner or later.”
Despite continued investigation, Kondamangale stuck to his story. Only then, says the inspector, did the police finally present the clue they had – CCTV footage. The video shows Kondamangle riding a bike with his daughter Prachi in Bodhan. Realizing that he had been exposed, Kondamangle reportedly started confessing his crime.
According to investigators, Kondamangle left his salon with his daughter on a two-wheeler. Hours later they reached the ARP camp. Vijay Babu says, “He stopped at a secluded place. He picked up the girl in his lap and walked towards the canal. He stood on the bank of the canal and dropped her in the water.”
Police say they were horrified that Kondamangle had taken the life of his own daughter. However, the motive was so shocking that they could not believe it. Nizamabad police commissioner, Sai Chaitanya, says, “He said he or his wife wanted to contest the panchayat (local body) elections. But the Maharashtra government’s two-child rule was an obstacle for him as he had three children: twin daughters and a 3-year-old son.”
The 2-child rule for Panchayat elections was imposed by various state governments in the early 1990s, primarily as a population control measure. It was put in place to ensure accountability among local representatives.
“To reach his political ambition, Kondamangle decided to kill one of his children and chose Prachi,” says the commissioner. Although Kondamangale reportedly confessed to the crime, investigators still had several loopholes. They started investigating his background from his village Kerur, located 8 km from Mukhed.
hungry for position
About 3,000 residents of Kerur depend entirely on agriculture. The village has narrow streets, mostly thatched roof houses and a few concrete houses, and is surrounded by vast tracts of dry land. Some roads are dirty due to being filled with drain water, while some have tiled paths. The villagers claim that their sarpanch, 36-year-old Ganesh Ramchandra Shinde, was contributing towards the development of the village.
Panchayat elections are to be held in the village in the next 6 months. Whereas, as per the lottery system, Kerur was under the ‘open category’ 5 years ago, meaning the seat of Sarpanch is not reserved for any specific social class, this time it is reserved for persons from Other Backward Classes (Women). Kondamangle, who runs a hair salon in a rented commercial premises on the main road, lives in a rented house in Baralinaka, Mukhed. Since his family belongs to the OBC category, his wife was eligible to contest for the post of Sarpanch.
The house of the accused is in Kerur village of Maharashtra. | Photo courtesy: Ramakrishna ji.
The police cannot understand how the salon owner suddenly decided to enter politics. Vijay Babu says, “At some point, Kondamangle started wishing to make himself or his wife the sarpanch. He confessed that the current sarpanch Shinde was ready to support him if he wanted to contest the elections.”
According to Kondamangle’s confession before the police, Shinde would sometimes visit his salon and sometimes his house. He encouraged Kondamangale to field his wife as a candidate. “Second accused Shinde said he would spend ₹15 lakh for it and would take care of any problem and asked first accused Kondamangle not to reveal his name to anyone,” the remand report submitted in the local court said.
Encouraged by Shinde’s support, Kondamangle felt that he was getting closer to the sarpanch seat. The only hurdle was the 2-child rule.
Vijay Babu says that initially, Kondamangle confessed that he had considered giving his 3-year-old son for adoption to one of his uncles. Since he had not obtained a birth certificate for the child, he thought this would allow him to circumvent the two-child norm. But he abandoned the idea, because hospital records listed his wife as the child’s mother, believing it could cause problems for his political ambitions.
Vijay Babu says, “During interrogation he admitted that he and his relatives had gone to the Mukhed Municipal Corporation office to verify whether he could adopt his son. They had also gone to Pune to seek clarification on the matter. We are verifying their statements.” “Realizing that the adoption plan was not a solution, he began to explore what other actions could make him or his wife a sire and ultimately decided to kill one of his children.” Police say that interrogation of Ankita and other family members revealed that Kondamangle particularly liked Prachi, and she liked him, which made the case more complicated for them.
Reportedly, Prachi’s twin sister, who is a few minutes younger than her, did not like sitting pillion on the bike. Police say that Prachi did not go to school on January 29. When she reached the salon a little before noon, her father told her that he would take her on a long ride and made her sit on the back of the bike. Vijay Babu says, “He had covered his face with a towel and left his mobile phone in the salon. This shows that the murder was premeditated.”
Kondamangle started towards Bodhan from Mukhed. Entering the Yedapalli area, he followed the Nizam Sagar Distribution Canal, stopped at an isolated point, and dumped it in the water. “While she was shouting ‘Papa, Papa’, he did not look back. He returned to the main road and then drove towards Maharashtra,” reads a sentence in the remand report.
When Ankita asked about the whereabouts of her child, Kondamangle apparently assured her that he had gone out for work and was not sure where he was. The couple contacted the local police and requested them to trace him. Investigators believe that the accused deliberately did not file a formal complaint with the local police. “Had he done so, a case would have been registered and they would have immediately come to know about his despicable act,” says an investigator.
On February 2, the police amended the charges to sections 140(1) (kidnapping), 103(1) (murder), and 238 (destroying evidence, providing false information) of the Indian Justice Code, 2023. They arrested both the accused and sent them to judicial custody. Ankita, her daughter and son have gone to their relative’s house.
Sarpanch’s support
Shinde has a lot of support in Kerur village. Many villagers declare him “innocent” and demand that he be released immediately. When Yedapalli sub-inspector M. Rama went to the village, villagers surrounded him and raised slogans that their sarpanch had been falsely implicated in the case.
“In a few years, there has been some progress in our village under Shinde’s leadership. New drainage lines were laid. We are getting tiled internal roads,” says resident Venkat Shinde.
Another villager, Balaji, says, “We are not sure why Kondamangle killed her child. But we know that our sarpanch is not one to promote any crime.”
Rajesh of Kerur, who runs a book shop in Mukhed, believes, “Whenever our villagers met Pandurag, they were already teasing him by calling him ‘Sarpanch Sahab’. This may have gone to his head and he took the extreme step of killing Prachi.”
Some residents are angry that this incident has brought a bad name to the village. Hanmant Baliram Shinde says, “This case is showing our entire village in a bad image, even though we have done nothing wrong.”
For the complainant in the case, ARP Camp Sarpanch P. Vinod Kumar, Prachi’s death is the most disturbing incident of his life. He says, “Whenever I pass by this canal, this horrifying image flashes in my mind. For me and others in the village who saw it, we cannot get rid of it.”
ramu.marri@thehindu.co.in
