HYDERABAD: Two 12-year-old mentally challenged and mute children who were on a vacation from their special home were brutally murdered by their maternal uncle, who choked them to death with a pillow in Chaitanyapuri on Friday night. He then tried to dispose of the bodies by telling the locals that the kids consumed phenyl assuming that it was milk and that he needed to rush them to hospital, his landlord said.
According to the police, he later confessed that he was unable to see his sister dealing with the “trauma” and hardship of looking after the mentally challenged twins. Mallikarjun Reddy, 33, uncle of the two kids, Srujanan Reddy, 12, and Vishnuvardhan Reddy, 12, came down to Miryalguda to meet his sister Lakshmi Reddy and her husband Srinivas Reddy, a production in-charge at Reddy’s Lab. The couple also have a three and a half year old boy.
Mallikarjun said that he wanted to take the children out for swimming and took them away to his place in Chaitanyapuri on Friday morning from Miryalaguda, said K. Pruthvidhar Rao, ACP, LB Nagar. “At around 11 pm he called his sister and brother-in-law and told them that he had killed the children and hung up. The panic-stricken parents called him back but in vain as his phone was switched off, following which they started from Miryalaguda along with their relatives and reached his house at around 5 am.
Mahesh Reddy, his landlord, alerted the cops by dialling 100 when he saw Mallikarjun shifting the bodies to his car's trunk. “Immediately we rushed to the spot,” said the official, adding that Mallikarjun and his wife got divorced last year as his wife was unhappy with him being jobless. The official also added that Mallikarjun had confessed to his crime, stating that he was depressed at the state of his sister, considering the difficulties the couple had in taking additional care of the children with special needs.
According to sources, the landlord saw Mallikarjun with his friend Venkat Reddy moving the body of a child. He confronted Mallikarjun, to which he said that the child had consumed phenyl thinking it was milk, thus he was rushing him to the hospital. However, when Mallikarjun put the second body in the car, the landlord alerted the cops.
“I could not handle the parents’ depression about having mentally challenged kids who cannot help themselves. They were also facing a financial crisis because of the expensive treatment. Even the children were suffering,” Mallikarjun said. Talking to DC, Sandeep Pannu, the couple’s neighbour said that Mallikarjun was a regular here and the children were also attached to him. A murder case was registered by the police against Mallikarjun and his friend Venkat Reddy and an investigating is on.
