Sacked CRPF personnel beheads children,kills 5 villagers

M Shankar Rao,sentenced to seven years in jail in the dowry death case of his wife in 2009 (who committed suicide in 2005),was later dismissed from service,they said.

Rao bore grudge against the witnesses who gave statements against him in the case,and while in jail allegedly hatched a plan to eliminate them,police said.

He came out of the jail five months ago after getting his sentence suspended by filing an appeal in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The appeal is still pending.

Rao,said to be mentally unsound,after serving food to his two kids Diwakar (6) and Manisha (5) in his house last night,allegedly beheaded them in their sleep with a sharp weapon,Srikakulam Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Jain,said.

Rao then wore the CRPF uniform and started searching for the witnesses in the village. He chased every witness and hacked to death five persons,including three women,another police officer said.

In between the attacks on witnesses,Rao kept on informing the police,through cell phone,about his brutal acts,the officer said,adding after committing the crime he hurled the country-made bombs to create smoke in the area.

Eyewitnesses said after beheading his children,Rao took their heads and placed them near a temple in the village.

“Before being caught by the police,he openly declared that he was actually planning to kill 15 persons,” they said.

It was not clear why he killed his children,police sources said. Rao has been taken into custody and was being interrogated.

Soumya Mishra,DIG (Visakhapatnam Range),and other senior police officials visited the village.

Meanwhile,a top police official said they would seek revocation of Rao’s appeal and send him back to jail. “Such people are a great threat to the society,” the official noted.