Hyderabad: The 62-year-old wife of retired Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS officer Vinay Ranjan Ray was found murdered at their residence in the upscale Prashasan Nagar area of Jubilee Hills on Friday.
The crime was carried out by a domestic help from Nepal, who had been working with the family for more than a year, the police suspect.
She allegedly fled with valuables after the incident. Ten police teams have been formed to trace the accused.
Ray, a 1986-batch IPS officer who retired as DG, Prisons, in 2019, had travelled to Bengaluru about a week ago. His wife Tanuja Ranjan and their two daughters stayed back at home.
Tanuja was found unconscious in her bedroom on the first floor of the family’s three-storeyed house, the ground floor of which was rented out to another family.
Investigation has revealed that Tanuja went to her room on Thursday night while her daughters slept separately on the second floor. Around 9.15 am on Friday, another domestic help arrived and repeatedly rang the doorbell. One of the daughters, Sunanda, came downstairs and, after noticing that maid Kalpana was missing, entered her mother’s room and found her lying on the floor with a blood-stained cloth stuffed into her mouth. Her hands and legs were tied.
Tanuja was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared her dead on arrival. Medical examination reports showed m
ultiple abrasions on her lips, ligature marks on the wrists and a bite injury on the tip of her tongue. Police suspect she was smothered to death.
The murder is believed to have taken place around 2 am, the city’s police commissioner V C Sajjanar.
“The assailants tied up her hands and legs and smothered her. A cloth was stuffed into her mouth to prevent her from screaming or raising an alarm. We suspect a Nepali gang to be behind the murder. This appears to be a clear case of murder for gain,” he said.
Sajjanar said the domestic help, Kalpana, had originally been employed to take care of Ray’s mother before later handling household work.
“Kalpana was residing with the family in the same house and was observing the movements of the family members. She planned the murder and facilitated the gang’s entry into the house. She has been missing since the incident,” he added.
The police suspect three unidentified men were also involved in the crime. The accused allegedly escaped with a bag believed to contain stolen valuables. Investigators said the suspects travelled by auto-rickshaw from Jubilee Hills to Nampally railway station and are believed to have boarded the Telangana Express towards Nagpur, as reported by News18.
The police found during investigation that Tanuja had spent time with her daughters till around 11.30 pm before they went upstairs. Investigators said the daughters remained awake till nearly 3 am but did not hear any disturbance.
The family’s driver Suresh told TOI that CCTV footage showed three unidentified men entering the bungalow through the main gate around 1 am and leaving between 2 am and 2.30 am.
“They were not wearing masks. While leaving, two of them were carrying iron rods and one was holding a bag,” he said.