For 63 hours, the answer to six murders in a quiet farming village near Hyderabad lay with a man who had disappeared.
His phone was on airplane mode. Surveillance cameras captured him stepping onto the railway track as the train approached, but he moved away at the last moment. Later, a bus ticket to LB Nagar in the capital and ₹1,206 in cash were found from him. Three days later, his body was found near a bottle of herb, 20 km from home.
The trail led to Shabad’s Daivalaguda village, about 50 km from Hyderabad, where violent crime was almost unheard of until the night of July 10. Between 10.30 pm and midnight, six people were killed in two houses six kilometers apart.
The alleged killer, Parvati Raj Kumar, was out on anticipatory bail in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (PoCSO) Act case involving one of the victims. At 11.50 pm, he called his father, confessed to the murders and said he wanted to end his life.
The victims were 17-year-old Akshara (name changed), her 44-year-old mother Lakshmi and her grandmother Rukmamma, and Rajkumar’s wife Sarita, 32, and their two young sons aged 4 and 18 months.
Following Raj Kumar’s disappearance and death, investigators have raised questions over the CCTV footage, 13-minute video, forensic evidence and the handling of the POCSO case. With the only suspect now dead, many questions may never be answered.
For residents of Davalaguda, the case leaves a haunting question: If Raj Kumar had been arrested after the PoCSO case was registered on May 16, instead of securing anticipatory bail on June 13, could the murders have been prevented?
63 hour interval
Police are still reconstructing Raj Kumar’s activities during those 63 hours.
According to preliminary investigation, Rajkumar left his Davalaguda home in a red car rented from a person in Shadnagar at 10.30 pm on July 10 after pawning his two-wheeler. Police believe six murders were committed over the next hour.
Relatives of the victims crying at Daivalaguda village in Shadab mandal of Rangareddy district. | Photo courtesy: Ramakrishna ji.
Investigators believe he first went to the house of POCSO complainant Akshara, where he allegedly killed the girl’s mother and grandmother and left with her around 11.10 pm. He returned home at 11.22 pm, leaving the girl in the car, and is suspected of killing his wife and two sons before driving away about 10 minutes later. He then allegedly took the girl to a lake about 200 meters away, where she was murdered.
Police say Raj Kumar abandoned the car near Thimmapur village, where he walked onto the railway tracks before retreating and then towards LB Nagar. His activities thereafter are under investigation.
A few hours before the murders, at 4.55 pm on July 10, Raj Kumar recorded a 13-minute video on his phone which became a key piece of evidence. In this he claimed that Akshara had been stalking him for about one and a half years and her family later demanded money, threatening to send her to jail. He said that he had sold two acres of land and paid a part of the money to them.
The body of suspect P. Raj Kumar was found some 63 hours after he allegedly murdered six people. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
He also spoke about his strained relationship with his wife and his fear that he would have nothing to leave for his two sons.
Rajkumar said that he had decided to kill Akshara, her mother and grandmother before killing his family and ending his life. The police are independently verifying the allegations in the video, which is the only reason for the alleged controversy.
Medical and forensic experts say the outcome of herbicide poisoning depends on the chemical involved, the amount absorbed, how quickly treatment begins and the overall health of the victim.
A senior forensic medicine expert at a government hospital, requesting anonymity, says herbicides primarily affect the lungs before causing damage to vital organs, especially the kidneys. Acute kidney failure is one of the leading causes of death in cases of severe poisoning.
The suspected herbicide, marketed under the brand name ‘Display’, contains active ingredients such as carfentrazone-ethyl or quizalofop-p-ethyl. Exposure can cause chemical burns to the mouth and throat, severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and significant amounts can cause respiratory failure and multi-organ damage. Raj Kumar’s family claimed that he was an alcoholic.
The doctor says, “The poison acts very rapidly in a person who has consumed alcohol. If the victim is not rushed to hospital and treatment is delayed, even a relatively small quantity absorbed may prove fatal.”
Forensic experts are wary of believing that Raj Kumar drank the entire one-litre bottle found near his body.
“It is very unlikely that a person could drink an entire one-litre bottle. The body’s natural response is to reject the toxic substance almost immediately through vomiting,” says an official from the Telangana Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL).
According to the official, most of the poison is excreted through vomiting, but the amount absorbed before that can still enter the bloodstream and cause serious organ damage.
People gathered outside Shabad Police Station after the alleged murder of six people on July 10. Photo courtesy: Ramakrishna Ji.
Police found white fluid and traces of blood around Raj Kumar’s mouth and nose. Experts say such bleeding could result from the corrosive effects of chemicals, disruption of blood clotting or terminal multi-organ failure.
Toxicology testing is expected to establish whether herbicide poisoning caused his death.
The FSL official says, “If the body reaches us before comprehensive medical treatment, traces of the original poison can often be recovered from stomach contents and sometimes from blood samples. When this is not possible, we still identify the poison through its metabolites, which are extracted from organs like kidneys and heart before analysis.”
Officials say toxicology reports usually take up to a month but in priority cases it can be completed within a week.
PoCSO and the question of security
The six murders have put fresh focus on the gap between the legal protections an accused gets and the legal protections victims and witnesses get after a criminal case is registered.
The issue gained further attention after another case involving a minor girl was reported in Malakpet, Hyderabad on July 13. A 17-year-old girl was reportedly taken from her home after her family complained that a man was following her. The police registered a case under Section 11 of the POCSO Act and recorded his statement at the Bharosa Centre. After her parents brought her home, the man reportedly came around 2 am and took her away. CCTV footage reportedly shows them leaving together. Five police teams have been formed to trace them.
In the Shabad case, the PoCSO case was registered on May 16 and Raj Kumar got anticipatory bail on June 13. The data shows that 52.54% of PoCSO cases in Telangana are pending, while 9.20% are still under investigation. Only 3.41% resulted in conviction.
Although PoCSO offenses are non-bailable, courts can grant bail depending on the facts of each case. Offenses punishable by less than seven years’ imprisonment, including sections 11 and 12 as applied in the Shabad case, generally face less rigorous scrutiny than offenses involving penetrative sexual assault under sections 4 and 6. Raj Kumar was released on a personal bond of ₹20,000.
Legal experts say the Shabad case highlights the difficult balance between protecting the rights of the accused and ensuring the safety of victims and witnesses while the case is pending.
Lawyer PV Krishnamachari says the case has exposed both investigative lapses and systemic shortcomings: “The criminal justice system has adequate provisions to protect the liberty of the accused, but there are very limited mechanisms to ensure the safety of victims, complainants and witnesses while the case is pending.”
He points out that India still lacks a consistently enforced victim and witness protection framework for ordinary criminal cases, leaving complainants vulnerable even after an accused is released on bail.
Akshara’s family members alleged that they repeatedly contacted Shabad police after Rajkumar’s release, fearing he might retaliate. Sub-Inspector Ramesh, the investigating officer in the PoCSO case, was later suspended.
Krishnamachari says victims and witnesses should be protected until the trial concludes, while accused persons who pose a persistent threat should be kept under strict surveillance. “If these measures had been implemented effectively, this incident probably could have been prevented,” he says.
He also stressed that bail conditions are meaningful only if the police ensure that they are followed. He further said, “Bail in itself is hardly an issue. It can be deposited by anyone. The real question is whether the police ensure that every bail condition is being followed and whether they maintain vigil on an accused who may pose a constant threat.”
After the PoCSO case was registered against Raj Kumar, the police were required to issue a notice under Section 35(3) of the Indian Civil Security Code (BNSS) directing him to appear before the investigating officer.
Legal experts say that once he failed to comply and absconded, the police had enough grounds to arrest him. However, the delay allowed him to approach the court for anticipatory bail. Krishnamachari says that if he had been arrested, he would have had to seek regular bail from custody, a process that usually takes two to three months in POCSO courts.
He also questions whether a strong opposition from the prosecution could have changed the course of the case: “The failure of the police to strongly oppose the petition allowed the court to grant him protection from arrest.”
The BNSS, enacted after the Supreme Court’s decision against routine arrest in crimes punishable up to seven years, requires the police to issue a notice before arrest unless the detention is necessary to prevent absconding, tampering with evidence or preventing further crimes.
Krishnamachari says these security measures were aimed at preventing dowry harassment, sexual offenses and arbitrary arrests in cases under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. But, he says, they can be exploited if investigating agencies fail to place sufficient material before the court to justify custody.
According to legal experts, delayed investigations, overburdened courts and inadequate monitoring of accused released on bail remain one of the biggest structural challenges facing the criminal justice system.
untracked path
Daivalaguda is back to his familiar rhythm. The fields are unchanged, but residents now remember July 10 as the night two homes became crime scenes and six people lost their lives.
The family of the sole survivor has been given ₹10 lakh in financial assistance. Authorities have offered the 19-year-old disabled person admission to a rehabilitation institute in Hyderabad for long-term care.
Raj Kumar’s family refused to claim his body. After post-mortem at Chevella Government Hospital, the municipality cremated him at a cremation ground in Shabad.
After the alleged killer died, investigators are left with a video in which he presents his version of the controversy, CCTV footage of parts of his last journey and a pending toxicology report that could establish how he died.
But the central question itself remains beyond investigation: were the murders the last act of a man who had already decided to die, or the result of a system that failed to recognize the threat in the weeks between the POCSO complaint, anticipatory bail and bloodshed?
