Six held for \'conspiring to murder\' minister Srinivas Goud

Hyderabad: Cyberabad police foiled the execution of an alleged plan to kill tourism minister V. Srinivas Goud and arrested six persons on Wednesday for hatching the conspiracy and offering Rs 15 crore supari to hired assassins. They seized country-made weapons and other incriminatory documents from them.

Police also detained some more suspects in Delhi from the residential quarters of former Mahabubnagar MP, A.P. Jitender Reddy.

The six arrested include Raghavendra Raju, Madhusudhana Raju, Munnuru Ravi, Ch Nagaraju, Bhandekar Viswanath and Varda Yadiah.

Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra said here on Wednesday that they had received a complaint from one Mohammed Farooq, a 45-year-old businessman from Shamshabad, who stated that when he went to the excise court in Mahabubnagar, two persons approached him and introduced themselves as Raghu and Nagaraju.

They said Mahbubnagar market committee chairman Amar was their brother and they were facing a problem from one Ghulam Hyder Ali, who stayed with a VIP, and sought his help because he was troubling their family members.

The complainant also stated that they came to Petbasheerabad to escape as they feared a threat to their life.

Based on the complaint, Petbasheerabad police registered cases under section 307 (attempt to murder), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 115 (abetment of punishment to life threat) of IPC and 25 (1) Arms Act.

"On February 26, we arrested Nagaraju, Viswanath and Yadaiah for committing an offence. It was also revealed that the three had colluded with Madhusudhan Rau, Raghavendra Raju and Munnuru Ravi to allegedly ‘kill’ the minister. They purchased a country-made weapon from Uttar Pradesh. Raju, Rau and Ravi went to Delhi from Vizag and took shelter at Jitender Reddy's staff quarters," the commissioner said.

"We will seek police custody from the court. Based on the court’s directions, we will question the accused on the money transactions and how they had procured illegal weapons," Raveendra said.

He also stated that they would probe the case in establishing the role of Jitender Reddy and BJP leader DK Aruna in connection with the case.