Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s image of a relatively crime-free city suffered another blow with the brutal daylight murder of a man on Wednesday that left citizens shocked and rattled.

The brazen attack took place on a busy road and was captured on CCTV camera.

According to the Rajindernagar police under the Cyberabad Commissionerate, 25-year-old J. Ramesh, a suspect in a murder case, was waylaid by four people and brutally hacked to death with an axe near pillar 143 of the P.V. Narasimha Rao Exrpressway. He was on his way home after attending court proceedings.

The victim was the prime suspect behind the killing of his friend Mahesh Goud in December 2017 in the Shmshabad area after their friendship turned sour over a married woman, according to N. Prakash Reddy, Deputy Commisisoner of Police.

Ramesh is said to have warned Goud, who continued to pursue the married woman. Incensed, Ramesh allegedly made Goud drunk before cutting his throat.

Two of the suspects behind Ramesh’s death — Mahesh’ Goud father and uncle — fled from the crime scene, leaving behind their weapons, only to surrender themselves to police later on.

The CCTV footage, which went viral on social media, shows the assailants chasing Ramesh for quite some distance before attacking him and axing him to death.

In the footage only one passer-by can be seen trying to kick the assailants in an effort to protect Ramesh while all other passers-by watch in horror.

The footage also revealed the presence of a traffic cop amongst the watching crowd, in addition to a police patrol car that passed by without stopping or trying to prevent the attack.

Other police officers later attended to the scene of the crime and moved the victim’s body to a local hospital where a post-mortem will be held.

The gruesome attack is the third of its kind in Telangana in less than a month. In all three cases, the attacks were carried out in broad daylight and caught on CCTV.

The first case was an alleged honour killing case in which a Dalit youth, Pranay Kumar, was attacked and killed by an alleged contract killer in Miryalaguda town.

It was followed by the case of a father who attacked and killed his daughter with a machete on a busy road in the Erragadda area of Hyderabad after being angered by her decision to marry a Dalit mand.

State Director-general of Police K. Mahinder Reddy warned against news channels against the repeated broadcast of the grisly murders — something he said was in violation of the rules.