Deccan Chronicle

Daughter raises doubts in Viveka’s murder case

Why is CM Jagan not seeking CBI probe now, questions Dr N. Suneetha Reddy

- DC CORRESPOND­ENT

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 ended up has actually 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 names petitioner­s listed 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 the YS Raja Reddy and Jayamma Park at Pulivendul­a, for which all family members used to take part regularly. at

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