Uncle kills mentally challenged twins in Hyderabad

The maternal uncle of mentally challenged twins is suspected to have murdered them with help from his friend in Hyderabad on Friday night.

It is alleged that Mallikarjuna Reddy wanted to relieve his sister and brother-in-law of the "burden of raising mentally challenged children".

According to the police, Mallikarjuna brought 12-year-old twins, Srujana Reddy and Vishnuvardhana Reddy, to his residence on Friday from Miryalaguda in the Nalgonda district of Telangana on the pretext of admitting them to a summer swimming camp in Hyderabad.

Mallikarjuna’s sister Lakshmi and his brother-in-law Srinivas Reddy live in Miryalaguda.

On Friday night, Mallikarjuna and his roommate Venkatram Reddy allegedly smothered the twins to death and tried to load the bodies in a car.

In the CCTV footage, the suspects are seen carrying the bodies with the help of the driver, Vivek Reddy.

At one stage, Mallikarjuna is seen dropping the body of one of the twins when the owner of the residential building, Mahesh Reddy, questioned them.

Mallikarjuna told Mahesh that he was taking the twins to a hospital as they were sick.

However, Mahesh grew suspicious and called the police who arrived in time and arrested the three suspects and sent the dead bodies for postmortem.

The police were dumbfounded when the parents of the twins refused to file a complaint against Mallikarjuna, saying that he is a nice person and they do not want to lose him after losing their children.

The police are now suspecting the involvement of the parents and are probing the case from all angles.