Rajkumar Seen Playing Cricket With Kids Before Murders

Hyderabad:Hours before killing six people, including his wife and two children, accused P. Rajkumar was seen playing cricket with his children in Dhaivalguda village near Shabad on Friday, according to his wife’s family members.

Relatives of victim Parvathi Saritha, who gathered at Osmania General Hospital mortuary for postmortem on Saturday, said Rajkumar had taken his children to Mamidpally for a haircut and later played cricket with them.

The murders, they said, occurred between 9 pm and 11 pm. After the killings, Rajkumar reportedly phoned his father, confessed to the crime and said he too would die.

Saritha’s relatives told Deccan Chronicle that she and Rajkumar had a love marriage in 2018 despite belonging to different castes. The couple lived separately from their in‑laws due to family disputes. Rajkumar was five years younger than Saritha.

Her cousin Kishtaiah said, “Since they had a love marriage, we did not interfere much in their family matters and were not aware of what was happening between them.” Another relative, Satyanarayana, said the couple had small domestic disputes. “By the time I reached Saritha’s house at 3.30 am, the bodies had been shifted. The furniture was damaged, it looked like they had fought,” he said.

Relatives alleged Rajkumar often threatened Saritha with divorce after he came into contact with the minor girl in 2024, whom he later killed. They also raised suspicion over the death of the girl’s father a year ago, which Rajkumar had reported as a heart attack.

K. Narayana, another relative, said Saritha had completed BEd and recently qualified the Teacher Eligibility Test. “We fail to understand why he killed the family. We are all in shock,” he said.

Family members added that Rajkumar had sold three acres of land, earning ₹1.3 crore per acre, and recently set up sheds for a dairy farm. Despite a Pocso case being registered against him, they alleged he was not kept behind bars.