Vijayawada: The murder case of former minister Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, uncle of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy took a serious turn on Tuesday, with the deceased’s daughter raising suspicion over conduct of Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy and his father Y.S. Bhaskar Reddy at the crime scene.
Dr N. Suneetha Reddy, daughter of the deceased former minister and MP, and N. Rajasekhar Reddy, her husband, filed a writ petition in the AP High Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the killing recently. The petitioners questioned the wisdom of Chief Minister Mr Reddy in not handing over the case to the CBI despite his earlier acts of open appeal, including petitioning the Governor and filing of a writ petition in the high court seeking a CBI probe.
Even eight months after becoming Chief Minister, Mr Reddy didn’t refer the case to the CBI and had instead constituted yet another Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has no justification, she contented in her petition.
The SIT has actually ended up interrupting investigation and gave rise to several doubts about the “intentions of the state police” in implicating innocent people in the case, so as to allow the real culprits go scot free, the petitioners opined.
The petitioners said in their writ petition that Y.S. Avinash Reddy was the one of the first family members who arrived at the crime scene at about 6.30 am on March 15, and its cleaning up was taken up even while he was present.
She said that she believed that Mr Avinash Reddy was “protecting Shankar Reddy for personal reasons”.
The petitioning couple claimed that D. Siva Sankar Reddy was the YSRC party state general secretary and was close to both Mr Bhaskar Reddy and Mr Avinash Reddy. They claimed that Siva Sankar Reddy was a person with known criminal activities in the past, adding that her father had expressed anger against him on several occasions.
She also said that Siva Sankar was instrumental for her father loss in the MLC elections in 2016.
With regard to YS Bhaskar Reddy, she said that he was YSR Congress party in-charge for Pulivendula and a close associate of Siva Sankar Reddy.
The petitioners listed names of 15 persons, stating that they are having suspicion about their conduct as they were present at the crime scene based on personal inquiries after the murder and made it clear that they were not making any specific allegations or accusations against any of them.
The list includes: Rangaiah alias Ranganna (watchman), Yerra Gangi Reddy, Uday Kumar Reddy, D. Siva Sankar Reddy, Parameswar Reddy, late Srinivasa Reddy (Kasunuru village), Y.S. Bhaskar Reddy, Y.S. Manohar Reddy, Y.S. Avinash Reddy, Sankaraiah (CI), Ramakrishna Reddy (ASI), E.C. Surendranath Reddy, Adinarayana Reddy (former minister), Mareddy Ravindranath Reddy alias B. Tech Ravi and Surendar Reddy.
The AP High Court held the hearing in the case on Tuesday and listed the next hearing in the case on February 6.
On the other hand, slain leader Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy’s family members did not attend the family Christmas held at the CSI Church at Pulivendula and skipped the death anniversary of Y.S. Jayamma, mother of late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy at the YS Raja Reddy and Jayamma Park at Pulivendula, for which all family members used to take part regularly.
