A five-year-old girl who vanished from a Hyderabad gated community was found dead after ransom calls to her family. Police suspect a dismissed security guard and are pursuing leads as the family demands the harshest punishment.
Police said the girl's grandfather and father received ransom calls demanding Rs 20 lakh for her release. (Photo: Representational)
Hyderabad,Oct 11, 2026 22:43 IST
A five-year-old girl who went missing from a gated residential community in Hyderabad was allegedly kidnapped and murdered, with police suspecting a dismissed security guard in the case. The child was later found dead in the community clubhouse cellar, and teams have been formed to trace the accused, who is absconding.
Police said the girl's grandfather and father received ransom calls demanding Rs 20 lakh for her release. Preliminary investigation has pointed to Vikram, a security guard who had recently been removed from his job at the gated community. "He is absconding and is suspected to be behind the kidnapping and murder," a police official said.
The girl, a Class 2 student, had gone to watch Bathukamma festival celebrations at the clubhouse on Saturday evening. According to police, her grandfather received a call at around 7.45 pm from an unidentified person speaking in Hindi, who said the child was with him and demanded Rs 20 lakh. "The caller asked him to come to Trimulgherry (in Secunderabad). In the meantime, her father also got a call with the same demand," the official said.
Family members and other residents of the gated community searched for the girl but could not find her, after which they approached the police. During the subsequent search operation, the girl's body was found at around 1.30 am on Sunday in an open sump in the clubhouse cellar in Kowkoor. Police said her hands and legs were tied.
In a purported audio clip of the call conversation broadcast by some TV channels, the caller is heard asking, "Do you want the girl or not?" He then asks the family to transfer the money to a bank account and says he will share the location from where they can collect the child. When the family members ask to see the girl on a video call, the caller refuses, the report said.
Police said CCTV footage showed the girl leaving the clubhouse and a man following her. Investigators, along with residents of the gated community, traced the number used for the ransom calls and found that it belonged to one of the security guards. A resident told media persons that the guard said Vikram had taken his phone and made the calls. Police also said they were verifying whether another security guard had any role in the case.
The girl's family demanded strict punishment for the accused. "He killed the child...He has to die," the victim's mother told a TV channel. Her father, who works as a research scientist at an agri company, said, "She is a five-year-oldThis (killing) is wrong. Whoever has done it...He should be compulsorily punished." A case has been registered at Bollarum police station.
The case centres on the disappearance of a five-year-old girl from a Hyderabad gated community, ransom calls demanding Rs 20 lakh, and the recovery of her body from the clubhouse cellar. Police suspect a dismissed security guard, who remains absconding, and said efforts are on to apprehend him while other possible links are being examined.
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With PTI inputs