(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)

HYDERABAD: A serial rapist and killer, Marri Srinivas Reddy (28) of Hajipur village in Bommalaramaram of Yadadri Bhuvananigiri district, was held guilty by a special court in Nalgonda on Thursday.Srinivas Reddy, a lift mechanic, was convicted in the rape and murder of three minor girls, aged 11, 13, and 17. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced later on Thursday afternoon.A Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat provided evidence before the court to prove the guilt of Srinivas Reddy. The court examined 101 witnesses and also took into account the DNA evidence. The police filed three different chargesheets in the three cases.The verdict comes within days of the Adilabad fast track court sentencing three persons to death in a gang rape incident.Srinivas Reddy of Hajipur was arrested on April 30 2019, a few days after the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl of the village. The family and villagers reported her missing on April 25 and her body was found the next day in the agricultural well belonging to Srinivas Reddy. Another body of a 11-year-old girl, who had gone missing since 2015, was also recovered from the same well. The body of a 17-year-old girl, who was reported missing earlier in 2019, was found in another agricultural well in the same area.Srinivas Reddy's parents and brother fled the village. Srinivas Reddy was arrested on April 30, 2019. The court also gave him to police custody later but he only told them that he was not involved in the crime. He told the court that he was in Kukatpally in Hyderabad on April 25, when a 13-year-old girl went missing and was murdered in his village.Srinivas Reddy took the plea in the court that he was impotent and could not have been involved in the crime. He also alleged the DNA evidence against him was fabricated. He said that he was framed in the case by some people of the village with whom he had a dispute in a land case.He had asked the court to produce his parents and brother in the court as witnesses on his behalf but since he could not give their address, the police could not present them.Srinivas Reddy, a lift mechanic, was also arrested in the murder of a woman in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh a few years ago and was out on bail.With the Nalgonda bar association having decided not to represent Srinivas Reddy in the case, a legal counsel for him was provided by the court itself.Srinivas Reddy used to trap the girls in the guise of giving them a lift on his two-wheeler to their village as there were no buses plying to the village during the afternoons. The villages resorted to demonstrations to demand that Srinivas Reddy be given a death sentence and it be implemented immediately. “He should also not be given a chance to appeal in the High Court against his sentence. We will resort to protests if his death sentence is not implemented immediately,” villages of Hajipur said at the Nalgonda court.Several villages came to the court holding placards demanding that Srinivas Reddy be given a death sentence.