Hyderabad: People buy insurance to ensure their family’s safety in the event of a tragic outcome. But the case here is quite opposite. Insurance agents persuade the uninitiated to buy a policy, and then stage the policyholder’s murder as hit and run incident in order to collect the insurance money in a backdoor agreement with the nominee. This modus operandi has been going on for 7 years. More than 10 people were killed by the said insurance mafia.
What is more alarming is that none of the insurance companies has inquired why residents of tribal hamlets are buying expensive policies or conducted claims investigations to evaluate their legitimacy. Even the banks did not suspect foul when insurance worth lakhs of rupees was getting deposited in poor people’s accounts. The police did not dig further when several accident fatalities were reported in the same mandal. Moreover, the doctors who conducted autopsy of these bodies declared the manner of death as accident. These concerns need further probing.
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10 murders across AP and Telangana
The Nalgonda police have identified a gang of insurance criminals that has been operating in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is learned that the gang members have murdered 10 people in Damacharla, Miryalaguda, Nalgonda, Suryapeta, Dachepalli, Macharla, Guntur and Ongole areas over the past 7 years. Two agents from Damacharla and Macherla were found to be key accused in the case. Reportedly, the police have taken 20 suspects into custody for probing. The suspects were interrogated on the basis of an article titled Beemasurulu, published in Eenadu on Tuesday. A top police official revealed that the accused have confessed to the findings of the article. The gang first killed a person in 2013 in Tenali and covered it up as a road accident. Upon further investigation, the local police found that insurance was the motive behind the murder. In order to escape future scrutiny, the gang began focusing on tribal areas and remote villages.
SP takes over the case
The police are also probing into the role of doctors, police officials and bankers involved in this sensational case. They are gathering the details of those who have claimed insurance money within a year of buying the policy especially in and around Damacharla mandal. Several nominees were summoned to Nalgonda PS for interrogation. As the FIR and post-mortem report is of key importance in policy claims; the team is going to grill the police and doctors who wrote these reports. Last year, doctors conducted an autopsy in 2 suspicious death cases in Miryalaguda Rural PS jurisdiction. Based on the forensic report; police have filed an FIR. Ranganath, SP of Nalgonda, found several irregularities in those reports and ordered further investigation.