Express News Service By

ELURU:A day after the gruesome rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl came to light triggering violent protests by an angry mob in a village near here, the protesters caught the accused, Ganiganti Suresh, here on Friday and beat him to death.

Some youths from Madepalli village in West Godavari district, where the incident occurred, were staging a dharna near the fire station here demanding action against the accused in the case when they accidentally spotted the accused, who is on the run, moving about in the area. Even as they tried to catch him, the accused ran towards a flyover and jumped down on to railway tracks below to escape from them. Meanwhile, the police reached the spot and were shifting the injured Suresh to a hospital when a group of protesters dragged him out of the police vehicle and kicked and rained blows on him indiscriminately leading to his death.

The police, however, gave a different version saying the accused had died due to injuries after falling from the flyover and they were shifting the body to hospital when the mob dragged it out of the vehicle. The protesters had vent their anger on the body, they claimed.

Tiyyala Lavanya of Madepalli village was raped and murdered allegedly by Ganiganti Suresh, a habitual offender from the same village, on June 16 after whisking away the girl secretly. After the girl went untraced for a day, her family suspected Suresh to have kidnapped her and handed him over to the police on Wednesday besides lodging a complaint against him. But he obtained a bail and fled from the village. Later, on searching Suresh’s home, the girl’s naked and decomposed body was found wrapped in a blanket inside a trunk.

This led to angry protests in the village and an attack on two houses that belonged to the accused. The protesters also vented their anger on the police and accused them of letting the accused escape.

SP Bhaskar Bhushan and Eluru DSP KGV Saritha reached the spot soon after learning about the death of Suresh. A case of suspicious death was registered and Suresh’s body was shifted to the area general hospital for post-mortem.

As the news spread across the city like wildfire, scores of people gathered at the spot giving a tough time to the police in controlling the crowd. Traffic too moved at a snail’s pace on the flyover.

Earlier in the day, the girl’s family members along with some villagers reached the Eluru Government Hospital, where the girl’s body was kept for postmortem, and staged a protest. Accompanied by activists of the All India Democratic Womens’s Asociation (AIDWA), SFI and other people they took out a rally to the Fire Station Centre and staged a rastaroko demanding the rapist’s arrest. They also demanded action against the police for alleged negligence. They left the spot only after learning about the death of the accused.

Later, Eluru DSP KGV Saritha told newsmen that the police reacted promptly to the complaint filed by the victim’s parents.

A case of missing girl was registered and efforts were made to trace her out. As the girl’s parents suspected that Suresh had kidnapped their child, the police searched his house and found her naked and decomposed body wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a trunk. “Based on preliminary evidence, including the injuries and blood stains on her body, we found that she was raped and murdered,” the DSP said.

“Soon after getting information about the accused jumping off the flyover, we rushed to the spot but found him dead due to injuries sustained from the fall. We were shifting the body to the hospital when the youths dragged it out and hit it repeatedly despite our efforts to stop them,” she added.