How it Happened
While on the highway, the men on the scooter tried to buy petrol in a jerry can from the Essar Mahalaxmi fuel station at Nandigama village. The cashier, sensing something amiss, refused. They managed to get it at a pump in Kothur further down. The accused then took a Uturn at the Shadnagar crossroads to return with the body in the direction of the city. They stopped at a culvert at Chatanapally, some 22 km south of the toll plaza, took the body wrapped in a blanket to the underpass below and set it ablaze. Disha’s scooter was abandoned near Kothur, after which all of them returned to Hyderabad. While three of them got off near Aram Ghar on the city’s outskirts, Arif took the lorry to its garage at Attapur and fled the city.
Meanwhile, finding her phone switched off, Disha’s sister and family had reached the toll plaza at around 10.20 pm. When they approached the police station at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), they refused to register a complaint, though the police station was located on the highway and was nearer to the toll plaza from where Disha had gone missing. The family was asked to go to the Shamshabad station late at night. It was only at around 3 am that some constables went to the toll plaza along with the family members, but they found nothing.
It was still dark when Shamala Satyam, a farmer from Lingojiguda village, noticed what seemed like the remnants of a bonfire while passing by the Chatanapally underpass. He didn’t give it much thought then. It was only on his return journey, after daybreak on November 28, that he saw a hand jutting out. The local police arrived on the scene, and soon the Shamshabad rural police station, where Disha’s family had registered a complaint, was also informed. They reached the spot and Disha was identified on the basis of a torn scarf, the buckle of her handbag and a Ganesha gold pendant on the charred body.
It had been some 10 hours since her family had reported her missing. The
avalanche of bad press and protests that followed all but destroyed the department’s reputation of effective and innovative policing. However, the police did redeem themselves somewhat by deploying 10 teams and arresting all four accused within 48 hours of the crime. “The sexual assault on the lady veterinarian was planned. We tracked down the accused with the help of human intelligence and CCTV footage,” says Cyberabad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar. But there was more bad news for the Cyberabad police, after reports came to light that they had five cold cases of charred bodies at hand, all women found in 2018 who could not be identified.
Police apathy is a striking feature in the Disha case. There are five patrolling parties each from the RGIA and Shamshabad rural police stations on the move in the area, but not one thought to check why the lorry or the scooter were parked for so many hours in the lonely spot. The men have admitted they were consuming liquor at the spot for some hours before they saw Disha leave her scooter near
None of the five patrolling parties from the RGIA and Shamshabad police stations in the area noticed anything amiss