Pidathala Mariyamma, mother of Pidathala Satyam Babu - prime accused in 19-year-old Ayesha Meera's murder case - began a hunger strike on the Tank Bund road on Wednesday. She said that her son has been convicted for a murder that he did not commit.
Satyam Babu, 23, suffers from Guillain-Barre Syndrome (a neurological disorder), and was ordered by the Andhra Pradesh High Court to be shifted from Vijaywada's government hospital to Hyderabad's NIMS hospital on 8 April 2010. Saying that her son was harassed in various degrees by the police while under custody, Mariyamma accused the police authorities of neglect towards her son's condition, and demanded his immediate release.
Satyam Babu was accussed by the police of being a rapist, and was accused of 8 murders.
Ayesha's parents have been insisting that the police picked up Satyam Babu only to shield influential people, and that the real murderer was still at large mainly due to the political clout his guardians possess.
Ayesha Meera, a 19-yr old pharmacy student of Nimra Engineering College, Vijayawada, stayed at Sri Durga Ladies Hostel, a local private hostel. She was murdered atrociously at the wee hours of 26 December 2007, after being raped in her hostel room. Police arrested Upendra Singh of Jagityal, Karimnagar, followed by Gurvindar Singh Anand alias Laddu, as prime suspects of the murder. Both were released after petitions were filed at the Human Rights Commission by their respective families.
Finally, the police arrested Satyam Babu in Nandigama on 11 August 2008, and allegedly forced a confession out of him, accepting that he committed the murder.