Hyderabad: Priyanka Reddy’s parents alleged that the police delayed in responding to the complaint that she was missing and also told them to go elsewhere to lodge a complaint. A swift response could have saved our daughter, they said.

Adding insult to injury was the callous and humiliating manner in which the police spoke of their daughter, saying she must have gone out with someone.

“I was feeling tense after 10.30 pm,” said Vijayamma, Priyanka’s mother. “My younger daughter Divya came with colleagues from her office to search for her. When they could not find her, we went to the RGIA police station. The police checked the footage and said that Priyanka was seen leaving the spot but not returning. They said she would have gone with someone. They asked if she had an affair and asked me to tell truth.”

Then they told her to complain at Shamshabad police station. “About three hours were wasted and by that time the accused would have taken my daughter out of the city,” she said. “While leaving home she said she would be back soon,” Vijayamma said. “Then she called and asked if I want tablets and the call was less than a minute. After that, her phone was switched off and I suspected something happened to her. The accused have done brutal things to my daughter.”

Priyanka’s father, P. Sridhar Reddy, agreed that if the police had been deployed immediately, his daughter might have been saved. “They did no physical verification and depended only on CCTV footage,” he said. “Instead of searching the next day and finding her dead beside the wall, the police could have searched immediately. They could have found her easily.”

Divya said she did not expect such a gruesome incident would happen to her sister. “When my sister called, I thought she was scared as it was late at night,” she said. “I later understood it was severe. When her number was switched off, I thought there was a network problem. I never imagined it could be an emergency or that she was in danger. She didn’t dial 100 and even I didn’t. The government should bring awareness about it.”

Police advised the media not to publish the victim’s name or that of her parents and her family. However, they could not justify their advice.