Nine murders committed to hide one - Telangana police solve the shocking case of nine dead bodies found in Warangal well

The sensational finding of nine bodies in a Warangal well turned out to be a grisly case of a migrant worker committing nine murders to hide his prior crime of one killing.

The revelation of four bodies of one Md Maqsood Alam’s family on Thursday in a huge, dilapidated well and five more – including those of three migrants - on Friday shocked Telangana last week.

The deaths of migrants during the COVID-19 lockdown and workers’ movement crisis nationwide led to initial beliefs that it might be a case of suicides.

Maqsood settled in Telangana two decades ago, migrating from West Bengal, while the accused Sanjay Kumar Yadav (24), a migrant worker from Bihar, came to Warangal about six years ago.  

Six of the nine dead are from the Maqsood family – wife Nisha (48), two sons – Shabaz (21), Sohail (18) and daughter Bushra (22) and her three-year-old son – all living in a gunny bag unit compound at Gorrekunta village, under the Geesukonda police station limits, near Warangal town.

Two others – Sriram (21) and Shyam – are from Bihar, also working and living in the same compound, while Shakeel (30) said to be a family friend of Maqsood, lives nearby.

After a 72-hour probe by six teams, Dr V Ravinder, Warangal police commissioner revealed the chilling details of the mass murders by Sanjay.

“Sanjay was living together with Rafiqa (36), who was the daughter of Nisha’s elder sister, in Geesukonda. Rafiqa, who was promised by Sanjay to marry her, confronted him when she noticed him being close with her teenage daughter. As she warned Sanjay of filing a police complaint against him, he decided to kill her. On the pretext of talking to their elders back home, regarding their wedding, Sanjay took her in on the Garib Rath train to Vizag on March 6,” the commissioner said in a press conference on Monday.

“Sanjay mixed sleeping tablets in buttermilk Rafiqa consumed and pushed her out of the running train near Nidavadolu in Andhra Pradesh when she was unconscious. After killing her, he returned to Geesukonda. A case was registered by the railway police then.”

“Later, Nisha enquired about Rafiqa and suspecting of some wrongdoing by Sanjay threatened to file a police complaint. That is when Sanjay decided to kill the Maqsood family. He went on recce at the unit for five days and chose the birthday of Maqsood’s son Shabaz on May 20 to execute his plan. He mixed sleeping tablets in their food and once they were asleep, he dragged each of them on a gunny bag to the well and threw them in the water,” the police official said. The official also added that this happened between 12:30 AM and 5 AM,

“For fear the Bihari youths might reveal his deed, Sanjay also killed them. CCTV footage of Sanjay’s movements formed the crucial evidence in the case. We took him into custody this afternoon. We will file the charge sheet soon and see that the culprit gets the right punishment,” the commissioner said while terming the murders as most unfortunate.