YSR Congress chief injured in knife attack
VIJAYAWADA : YSR Congress president, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, was on Thursday injured on the left arm in a knife attack by a man working as a chef in a restaurant in Visakhapatnam airport, police said.
Reddy, the leader of Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, escaped with a “deep cut” on his left arm that required three stitches, doctors at the Hyderabad hospital where he was treated said.
According to the police, the YSR Congress chief was waiting in the airport’s VIP lounge to take a flight to Hyderabad to attend the weekly trial in a disproportionate assets case when the 30-year-old man approached him and served him coffee.
“After serving coffee, the man requested Jagan for a selfie. As the YSRC president was obliging him, the man took out a sharpedged knife from his pocket and attacked the unsuspecting Jagan. The knife pierced Jagan’s left arm. CISF assistant commandant, Dinesh Kumar, and Jagan’s armed security men responded quickly, overpowered the assailant and handed him over to CISF security personnel,” Andhra Pradesh director general of police (DGP), RP Thakur, said.
The police said the attacker was called Janipalli Srinivasa Rao and had been working as a chef at a restaurant in Visakhapatnam airport for the past year. Visakhapatnam DCP Mahendra Patrudu, said preliminary investigations suggested that Rao was an activist of YSR Congress and a follower of Reddy. “It appears that he committed the offence to gain some publicity,” he said.