4 min readHyderabadFeb 3, 2026 05:24 AM IST
First published on: Feb 2, 2026 at 06:41 PM IST
To the outside world, Pandurang Kondmangale (28) seemed like a doting father to his three children – a three-year-old boy and twin girls aged six.
A resident of Kerur village in Maharashtra’s Nanded, where he ran a barbershop called Viraat Saloon, he now stands accused of a crime few would find fathomable.
As Maharashtra recently began gearing up for its rural local body or panchayat elections – scheduled for June this year – the 28-year-old started becoming restless. He felt he, too, had it in him to become the sarpanch of his village.
But there was a catch – as per Maharashtra’s Panchayat Raj Act, people with more than two children cannot contest rural local body elections. Kondmangale decided to seek advice from the current sarpanch of the village, Ganesh Shinde. “The two were friends, and they allegedly decided to get rid of one of his children, Prachi, the elder of the twins,” Sau Chaitanya, the Nizamabad Commission of Police, told The Indian Express.
The men first considered putting Prachi up for adoption. But that would not have served the purpose because she would still be registered as his child in the birth certificate issued six years ago.
“He then thought of abandoning the child. But what if she came back to the village?” Chaitanya said. “The two then allegedly conspired to kill the child and make it seem like an accident.”
“Kondmangle allegedly took Prachi for a trip to Nizamabad, just a few kilometres away from his village,” Chaitanya said. “No one suspected anything because crossing the border is common.”
He took the girl on a motorcycle to Nizamabad district’s Nizamsagar Canal, which is surrounded by agricultural fields. “He allegedly pushed the girl into the water and fled the scene,” Chaitanya said. But villagers who were working nearby heard something plunge into the water and rushed there to find the girl’s lifeless body floating in the canal.
“The local police were alerted, and the body was fished out,” Chaitanya said. As the body was pulled out of the water soon and was not bloated, the police could take pictures of her face.
“The pictures were circulated widely on social media, WhatsApp and newspapers. Someone from the Maharashtra village identified Prachi when they saw her photo as the display picture on the WhatsApp number of one of the police personnel,” said Chaitanya. The villager alerted the Telangana police, which had already constituted three teams to look into the murder. “One of the teams reached the village in Maharashtra and confronted the father,” Chaitanya said.
At first, he claimed his daughter was undergoing treatment at a faraway health centre. But he could not explain who was taking care of her. “When pushed to a corner, he revealed that he had killed the child,” Chaitanya said.
Kondmangle has been booked under sections of murder and criminal conspiracy, and the current sarpanch has been booked as a co-conspirator.
“The child couldn’t swim when she hit the water. Though the villagers reached the canal within 10 minutes, no one could save her life,” Chaitanya said.
The girl was taken on a motorcycle to Nizamsagar Canal, where she was pushed into the water. (Express Photo, enhanced with AI) 
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