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.
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Accused brought in to Nalgonda
An employee from Nalgonda has been acting as a link between insurance companies and claimers. While the police are looking into his role in the crime, several other suspects are being brought from Andhra Pradesh to Nalgonda. They are also probing into agents who received lump sum under insurance claims. In 2017, a nominee made a death claim of Daida Hussain, a resident of Kondaprol, Damacharla mandal while he was still alive. When the third party claims investigation team got suspicious and grilled the nominee, she confessed to have acted upon the advice of the insurance agent. A complaint has been registered for the same in Vadapalli PS. Since the police took the case easy at that time, the accused escaped without punishment. It is alleged that the police were lax even after several such cases were reported in the same PS limits over the past 3 years.
2 agents, crores of properties
As per the reports, the two agents who are key accused in the crime have amassed about Rs 50 crore over the past 5 years. 2 days ago, several documents were seized from the houses of the accused in Rallavagu Tanda, Miryalaguda, Hyderabad, Macherla and Ongole. During police interrogation, the agent from Damacharla revealed to have acquired property worth crores in Miryalaguda, 10 plots in Hyderabad and apartments in Guntur and Macherla. The other one from Macherla was reported to have bought valuable properties in Guntur and Ongole.
Policyholder in dark about his policies
On Tuesday, a fresh scam was uncovered in Miryalaguda, where a private employee was made a policyholder for 10 insurance policies without his knowledge. The victim Kandukuri Bhaskar reported having noticed some unauthorized transactions from his bank account towards insurance premium payments during December 2020. When he contacted the bank officials, they told him that the payments were made towards 10 policies at the Insurance Office. Bhaskar contacted the office for further details and got to know that Veeramalla Srinivas and DO Chilaka Saidaiah were the insurance agents who sold these policies. Srinivas is a resident of Chilakaluripet (Guntur district) while Saidaiah lives in Nalgonda. Bhaskar immediately approached the 1 town PS Miryalaguda and registered an FIR. Further, he mentioned in the complaint that his KYC has been altered and a new ATM card was issued to the agents; expressing concern about the role of bank officials in the whole scam. CI Sada Nagaraju said that a complaint has been filed against the insurance agent and the DO and that the case is being investigated.
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