These Snakes Held 'Local Darbars' Right Under the Nose of Police

Almost a month after an 18-year-old girl was gang-raped by the Faisal Dayyani gang at Pahadishareef, new details have emerged of the culprits’ audacity and strong-arm tactics — it appears they used snakes to intimidate people and settle land disputes at ‘local darbars’ in Jallepally. They had similarly threatened the girl with a snake before sexually assaulting her. Now, it has come to light that the gang members had also offered a bribe of `2 lakh to the Pahadishareef police to get the case against them scrapped. An internal police report on the gang-rape case revealed the key accused, Faisal Dayyani, with the help of a local political leader, offered the bribe to the Pahadishareef police. This has led to the immediate transfer of inspector Bhaskar Reddy. Officials, however, are still investigating whether the police accepted the bribe. It’s said that the police had initially refused to take the gang-rape victim’s complaint. Finally, they did take into custody two of the accused a few days after the incident of July 31 but let them off later. The case was taken up again after a senior police officer directed the local police to take it seriously. Cyberabad Police Commissioner CV Anand, who transferred Pahadishareef Inspector for alleged negligence in registering cases on time against the gang-rape accused, said Tuesday that they were trying to dig up past criminal records of the Faisal gang members. The police found some leads that one of the gang members Salam Hamdi, 24, a resident of Bismillah colony, Venkatapur village, Saroornagar, is a snake charmer and supplies snakes to gang leader, Faisal Dayyani. It has also been found that Dayyani and his fellow gang members were involved in organising local darbars — for settling land disputes — in Jallepally by threatening the parties concerned with snakes. Investigation revealed that they used to record the proceedings on their cell phones. The gang members were also allegedly involved in extortion cases, targeting local businesses. Though their weapon was a snake, the gang was tech savvy enough to use WhatsApp to exchange information and coordinate their criminal activities. With their dreaded activities now coming to light, residents of Cyberabad are questioning police inaction in general and with regard to the gang-rape at Pahadishareef in particular. The police, on their part, have requested the angry residents of Jallepally to cooperate with them in exposing all the previous offences of the Faisal Dayyani gang.

By Mouli Mareedu

moulimareedu@gmail.com