A day after bodies of two girls raped and murdered were recovered from a Telangana village in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, police on Tuesday began search for the skeletal remains of a third girl also raped and murdered by the same man.
Following violent protests, police was forced to launch fresh probe into all the cases of missing girls from the nearby villages.
Hajipur village was rocked by the sensational revelations that the 27-year-old accused of rape and murder of a girl last week has been involved in a series of such offences over last four years.
Srinivas Reddy, who was in police custody, allegedly raped and killed at least three girls and dumped the bodies of two of them in a dry abandoned well on a land owned by him near the village.
The gruesome details came to light during the investigations into the rape and murder of a Class 10 student.
The 14-year-old victim from Hajipur had gone missing while returning home from her school in Keesara on April 25. The next day police found her bag near the well and her body was found inside the well.
While retrieving her body from the well on Monday, police found skeletal remains of another girl. Investigations revealed that the skeletal remains were of an 18-year-old, who had gone missing since April.
The accused allegedly raped and killed her and later dumped her body in the well.
As the news spread, family of an 11-year-old, who was missing since 2015, approached the police.
The girl from Mysireddypally village had gone missing from Hajipur where she had gone to meet her aunt.
Following Reddy's interrogation, the police then launched a search for third victim's skeletal remains in another abandoned well in the same area.
Angry villagers on Tuesday attacked and set ablaze Srinivas Reddy's house. His family members had already fled from the village.
As tension mounted with the protests demanding stringent punishment to the accused, additional police forces were rushed to the village.
Collector Anita Ramchandran also visited the village and took stock of the situation.
The police also began a fresh probe into cases of missing girls from surrounding villages.
The preliminary investigations also revealed that the accused, a lift mechanic, was also involved in the murder of a woman in Kurnool town of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in 2016.
According to the police, after killing the woman he had dumped her body in an overhead water tank adjacent to a penthouse, where he was residing on rent.
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