A Telangana minister on Tuesday said the guilty person in the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Hyderabad “will be killed in an encounter”. Labour Minister Malla Reddy’s comment came a day after state Congress chief Revanth Reddy made a similar demand.

“We will definitely arrest him and will do the encounter,” Malla Reddy told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Hyderabad. The talk of encounter gave new twist to the case amid the ambiguity over the whereabouts of the accused.