May 1, 2012 SRIKAKULAM: A district court here on Monday awarded the death penalty in a massacre case in which seven persons were killed by a former CRPF jawan Metta Shankar Rao. The court ordered that the 38-year-old Rao be hanged till death.

Pronouncing the verdict, judge K V Ramanaji Rao also sentenced the former jawan to 10 years of simple imprisonment for possession of lethal weapons and explosives under sections 3 and 4(A) of the Explosives Substances Act and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000. Rao created terror by going on a murder spree butchering seven people, including his two children, at Mettapeta village in Julumuru mandal on the night of November 30, 2010. In a gory act, he beheaded the children – Mahesh, 9, and Manasa, 6 – and placed the children’s heads in the nearby Someswara temple and the bodies in his house.

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