Hyderabad: Narreddy Suneetha, daughter of former Kadapa MP Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, has accused Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of exerting pressure on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to delay the probe into his father’s murder, which took place five years ago.
Speaking at a media conference in Hyderabad, Suneetha said there is enough evidence with the CBI to prove the guilt of killers and to uncover the larger conspiracy behind murder, but it is not doing so at the behest of Jagan Mohan Reddy.
“That is how the investigation has come to a halt for over a year,” Suneetha said, expressing her anguish as to how long she should wait for justice. “Every time the case came up in court at a crucial juncture, Jagan met the Prime Minister or other higher-ups in Delhi and the trial is adjourned for long periods.”
Expressing her frustration with the legal system, she alleged that the accused in the case and Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy should have been in jail by now and barred from contesting the ensuing Parliament elections if the trial in the case was completed in a time bound manner.
Avinash Reddy was arrested by CBI last year and was released on bail immediately following an anticipatory bail granted by the Telangana high court. His father Bhaskar Reddy, who is also an accused, however, is in jail after a brief interim bail given by the court.
The case was transferred from a court in Kadapa to the special CBI court in Hyderabad in November 2022, after Suneetha and her mother Sowbhagyamma moved the Supreme Court. The court found it a fit case to transfer as there was a chance of influential people attempting to scuttle the trial in the home state of Andhra Pradesh. The investigation of the case was also handed over from local police to CBI two years earlier at the insistence of Suneetha.
Justifying her support to state Congress president and her cousin Y.S. Sharmila, who is contesting against Avinash Reddy in the Kadapa parliamentary constituency, Suneetha said she had plunged into electioneering on behalf of Sharmila though she was not a member of Congress as she felt a voter has to make an informed decision.
She squarely blamed Avinash Reddy for the killing of her father as the MP could not match her father’s popularity as a “tall leader” anywhere in Kadapa. “Avinash was unable to achieve the level of Vivekananda however much Jagan tried to promote Avinash. Vivekananda Reddy handled challenging tasks in the YSR Congress in politically sensitive constituencies in Jammalamadugu. Also, the MP could not digest Vivekananda Reddy seeking Sharmila’s candidature on the YSR Congress ticket in the 2019 general elections from Kadapa,” Suneetha said.
Vivekananda Reddy was killed on the night of February 14, 2019, barely two months before the elections.
Making a video presentation of the digital evidence of the timeline of phone calls between Avinash Reddy and the killers on the fateful night, Suneetha dared the MP to surrender his phone to the probe agency so that the truth could be unearthed.
She also showed video clips of the gory scenes of her father’s murder in the bathroom when he was alone at his home in Pulivendula. One of the alleged killers was seen running towards the house of Avinash Reddy after accomplishing the task at odd hours of the night. The bathroom was cleaned up of blood stains before the police arrived. She also showed multiple pictures of the prime accused in the case, Yerra Gangi Reddy, Y. Sunil Yadav, Gajjala Uma Shankar Reddy and Sheikh Dadragiri, with Avinash Reddy on different occasions.
Suneetha and Avinash Reddy are fourth-generation step grandchildren in the family tree shown in another clip.
She questioned the initial claim of a TV channel owned by Jagan that Vivekananda died of a heart attack. In fact, Jagan knew about the incident even before her, she added. “Why is he supporting Avinash if it is not for hushing up the case? “.
She expressed her resolve to take the case to its logical end as her goal is to get justice so that it is not repeated. Warning that the killers should know that such acts do not go unpunished, she said it was merely the reason why she was waging her struggle.
Suneetha said Sharmila has the qualities of a good leader, adding that the YSR Congress could not have existed without the latter’s support. She recalled that Sharmila had undertaken 3,200 kilometre padayatra across the state when her brother Jagan was lodged in jail for months in a disproportionate assets case.
Continuing further, she said Jagan favoured the transfer of the murder case to CBI as Leader of Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly but backed out within days of becoming chief minister. It was Sharmila who gave her support to fight for an independent agency to probe the murder.
She parried a question on Vivekananda having a second wife and said, of course, there was a lot of turbulence within the family but it was too personal to impact an impartial probe. She wished her extended family had the courage to come to take her side. The moral strength of her father and uncle Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Jagan’s father and former chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, was lacking in the family.
Asked if she had played into the hands of Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in opposing Jagan, she said it was a figment of imagination. It was a coincidence that Siddharth Luthra was a counsel for her and Naidu in different cases in the Supreme Court.
She expressed her despair at not being able to get an appointment with Jagan to know why he was shielding Avinash Reddy.
She said she gave up a lucrative career as a medical doctor in the US to be with her parents in India. She recalled the close bond which she enjoyed with her father.
