Universal Srushti, iBomma and Sigachi: Key crime cases that shook Hyderabad in 2025
HYDERABAD: In 2025, crime in and around Hyderabad shattered not just laws but trust. It crept into every facet of life, camouflaged as support. This year saw clever, patient criminal networks exploiting society’s rapidly changing weaknesses.
Here are five key cases that shaped this year. They include clinics selling false hope, websites trapping users, deadly factories, homes turned into nightmares, and screens hiding financial struggles behind celebrity smiles. These stories defined a year of lost trust.
Trafficking of hope: ‘Universal Srushti’ fertility racket
No crime this year better symbolized the corruption of hope than the busting of the ‘Universal Srushti’ fertility empire. What began in July 2025 as one couple’s devastating discovery, a DNA test proving their surrogate-born son was not theirs, exploded into the unravelling of a pan-Indian baby-trafficking syndicate. Police dismantled a sprawling network led by Dr Athaluri Namratha, who had built a chain of clinics not to foster life, but to commodify it.
The business model was simple. Agents bought newborns from vulnerable mothers for a few lakhs. Meanwhile, Doctors and embryologists in the clinics created a convincing front of real IVF and surrogacy procedures. These infants were then sold to desperate, childless couples for over Rs 30 lakhs. The investigation uncovered a long history of no accountability. There were over 15 previous cases against the main accused in four cities. Many of these cases are stuck in court or were quietly compromised. The racket continued even after its medical registration was cancelled, fraudulently using a licensed doctor’s identity. The arrest of 25 people, including doctors, agents, and lawyers, showed how organized crime has invaded healthcare. They profit from suffering while pretending to help.
Digital trap: iBomma piracy case
If the surrogacy racket took advantage of the need for a child, the next big bust targeted a more common desire: free entertainment. The Hyderabad Cyber Crime Unit’s arrest of Ravi Emandi, architect of the iBomma/Bappam piracy network, revealed a metaphor for modern cybercrime. This was no simple piracy bust. Emandi built a digital ecosystem across 65 mirror sites, attracting 5 million users per month. The free movies were bait in a trap designed to funnel users toward illegal international betting platforms like 1win and 1xbet, said Hyderabad police, who are investigating the case.
Significantly, the operation caused losses of thousands of crores to the film industry and weaponised malware to steal user data for further crimes. Emandi, who renounced his Indian citizenship for a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport, used foreign servers to evade the law. The iBomma case shows how cybercrime has become a trap. A simple click for entertainment can lead to financial ruin and identity theft.
Glamour as a gateway: Illegal betting app scandal
The iBomma case exposed the illegal funnel to betting apps. The next big case involved illegal betting apps. Cyberabad Police registered a case targeting not just the management of these apps but also the celebrities and social media influencers who promoted them. Triggered by complaints from victims, one of whom reported losses of over Rs 3 crore, the FIR named Telugu film stars, TV anchors, and influencers.
The allegation was that these trusted faces used their credibility to mask betting promotions glamorising a dangerous activity for a young, impressionable audience. This case was no longer just about anonymous apps. It was now about a slick, celebrity-backed system that turns fan loyalty into massive personal debt.
Unanswered explosion: Sigachi industrial catastrophe
From the virtual world of digital fraud, the year’s narrative crashed into the brutal reality of industrial neglect. The catastrophic explosion at Sigachi Industries in Sangareddy on June 30, 2025, killed 54 workers and injured 28. It marked India’s deadliest industrial disaster since Bhopal, according to some environmental activists.
The tragedy became a dual disaster. Along with the loss of life, there was also a slow failure of justice. Families were left with partial payments, pending death certificates, and no accountability. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by scientists and civil society applied pressure. This pushed the state to acknowledge in court the company’s dangerous and negligent operations.
Finally, as the year drew to a close, a sliver of accountability emerged. On December 27, 2025, Sigachi’s Managing Director and CEO, Amit Raj Sinha, was arrested and remanded to judicial custody. The arrest came six months after the blast. It was a late but important step. It showed that corporate responsibility couldn’t be ignored.
Intimate horrors: Marital violence
If Sigachi represented a massive, systemic failure, the year’s other crimes revealed horrors of an intimate, unspeakable scale. Two cases in Rachakonda, in Meerpet and Medipally, formed a horrifying symmetry of marital violence ending in dismemberment, yet their origins told different stories.
In Meerpet, an ex-serviceman, Putta Gurumurthy, reported his wife missing after a quarrel. But CCTV footage told the true story, she never left. His confession revealed a home filled with horror. He spent 10 hours strangling, dismembering, boiling, burning, and pounding his wife’s body. He used household tools to erase her existence. It was a crime of cold, clinical annihilation.
In Medipally, another case of marital violence, there was no mystery, only a predicted tragedy. Samala Mahender Reddy, a Rapido rider, murdered his 21-year-old wife, B. Swathi, who was five months pregnant. Her path to danger was already charted: a prior police complaint under Section 498A, compromised by village elders, and a job she was forbidden to keep. When she planned a visit to her parents, he saw it as defiance. His premeditated murder, dismembering her body and scattering parts in the Musi River, was lethal.
Together, these cases bookended the year’s most personal violence. One was a sudden storm of hidden psychopathy; the other, the fatal endpoint of a visible cycle of abuse. They served as a dark reminder that, for many, the biggest threat is in their homes.
Crime this year was not just in the dark. It thrived in fertility clinics full of hope, on free streaming sites showing the latest films, on factory floors where safety did not matter, and on smartphones where influencers smiled while promoting harm. The most intimate space, home, became a site of brutal crime. Each case revealed a facet of a broader, unsettling truth.
