A couple walks out of a hospital, casually chatting with each other, while another woman walks close to them. As the couple reach the gate, a man can be seen coming from behind them, walking briskly. As the couple exit the hospital gate, the man attacks the young husband with the machete in his hand. The young man falls down on the first blow, the attacker hits him on the head once more, before running away as the two women recover from their initial shock and try to push him away.
The young man, Pranay Perumalla, did not survive the gruesome attack. CCTV footage from the Jyothi hospital in Nalgonda district captured the brutal murder of Pranay, who came with his pregnant wife Amrutha for her check-up.
The couple got married six months ago and Amrutha was reportedly three months pregnant. The CCTV visuals show Amrutha and the other woman, now identified as Pranay's mother Premalatha, running towards the hospital, screaming for help. But Pranay had died on the spot, according to the police.
Disclaimer: The video below may be disturbing to some viewers.
According to initial reports, while Pranay was from a Scheduled Caste community, Amrutha was from a caste Hindu (forward caste) family.
Police officials told TNM that an inquest was being conducted and they were on the lookout for the attacker. Pranay's family protested demanding the arrest of Maruthi Rao, Amrutha's father a real estate businessman based out of Miryalaguda. Amrutha had shared a picture of Ganesha idol decked up, on her Facebook page on Thursday, a day before the brutal murder. She had also shared several posts on being a new mother.
Pranay's murder is eerily similar to a caste crime that shook Tamil Nadu in 2016. Kausalya and Sankar had only been married for eight months when Sankar was brutally murdered in broad daylight in Udumalaipettai, in Tamil Nadu. While Kausalya was a caste Hindu (Thevar caste), Sankar was a Dalit. Unhappy with the couple’s relationship and marriage, Kausalya’s father, Chinnasamy masterminded the murder of his 22-year-old son-in-law, who was hacked to death by four men on March 13, 2016. Kausalya was only 20 years old at the time. 21 months after the ghastly murder, a TN court awarded death to Chinnasamy.
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