A mentally unstable man, who allegedly hacked his father to death at their house in Sriram Nagar Colony in Shankarpally of Ranga Reddy district, was arrested in the late hours of Thursday, in quite a dramatic way. OCTOPUS commandos had to be deployed to nab the accused.
Medari Yadaiah (40), who has been suffering from mental illness for the past several years, used to frequently quarrel with his father Anjaneyulu (60) over petty issues, police said. Since the death of his mother six months ago, Yadaiah was living with his father. His wife and three children had left him a year ago.
On Thursday evening too, he picked up an argument with Anjaneyulu, following which he grabbed a kitchen knife and hit him on the head, which resulted in his father’s instant death, Shamshabad Deputy Commissioner of Police N. Prakash Reddy said.
He said that the offence took place around 6.30 p.m. and neighbours and passers-by alerted Shankarpally police, who rushed to the spot and tried to nab the accused. It took more than five hours for the police to catch Yadaiah as he locked himself inside the house and was moving around wielding the weapon.
In fact, commandos of the Organisation for Counter Terrorist Operations (OCTOPUS) were pressed into service to smoke him out of the house.
“As he could harm himself or others with the weapon, the job to get him out was assigned to the OCTOPUS, who cordoned off the area and hurled smoke grenades inside the house to nab the target,” Mr. Reddy said.
As the entire house was filled with smoke, Yadaiah went to the terrace with the weapon in his hand. Subsequently, the commandos used a water cannon to disarm him, the DCP said. “When the knife fell on the ground, the OCTOPUS commandos who had already surrounded the area, jumped on the terrace and nabbed him,” he said, adding that the operation went on till 1.30 a.m. on Friday.
Later, the accused was arrested and shifted to the Institute of Mental Health at Erragadda.
