Hyderabad police have arrested a former security guard in connection with the alleged murder of a five-year-old girl inside Villa Orchids, a gated housing community in Kowkoor, after investigators found her body in a dark, under-construction cellar without CCTV coverage.
Vikram Kumar, a former guard at the housing society, was arrested late on Sunday night, more than 24 hours after the child was reported missing. Malkajgiri police commissioner B Sumathi said Kumar allegedly chose the cellar because it was secluded and not covered by the community’s surveillance network.
According to police, Kumar had worked at the society for about four months and was dismissed a day before the incident for poor conduct. Investigators allege that he knew the child’s routine and approached her after she left the clubhouse, where she had gone to watch Bathukamma celebrations. Police said the child was familiar with Kumar and followed him into the under-construction area.
The police allege that Kumar killed the girl using construction material at the site and then placed her body in a water sump. He allegedly left the community through the main gate and called the child’s family to demand a ransom of Rs 20 lakh. Police said the family agreed to pay if he first made a WhatsApp video call to prove that the girl was alive, but he refused.
The family filed a police complaint at about 9.45 pm on Saturday. Sumathi said officers reviewed footage from 130 CCTV cameras during the first four hours of the investigation while teams searched areas including Secunderabad railway station using mobile tower information. After reviewing the investigation at around 2 am on Sunday, police shifted their search to secluded sections inside the gated community and found the body in the cellar, which residents rarely visited.
The case has also drawn attention to how gated communities manage access, surveillance and unfinished spaces. Residents reportedly told police that Kumar had been caught smoking and drinking in the cellar a few days earlier, after which the security agency dismissed him. Police also said he obtained the family’s phone numbers from a register kept at the society’s main gate, indicating that information held for access-control purposes was available to security staff.
After the arrest, Kumar was produced before a court and sent to judicial remand. Police said they would seek his custody for further interrogation and were awaiting information from Nalanda police to verify his antecedents. The investigation will also examine the sequence of events inside the housing society, the security arrangements in the cellar and the accused’s movements after the alleged crime.
