Anantapur tense, TDP gives bandh call

Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, Apr 18 (UNI) Tension prevailed in this district following the murder of former Andhra Pradesh legislator Suryapratap Reddy alias Sureedu today.

The Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is making efforts to organise a bandh here tomorrow. The police suspect that it was a planned murder.

Sureedu attended a small family function of his daughter-in-law at his residence in Srinagar Colony in Hyderabad on Sunday and left for Tadipatri the next day. Before boarding the Venkatadri Express at Secunderabad, he happened to meet Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister N Raghuveera Reddy of the same the district.

After brief chat, both boarded the same train. But the Minister got off first at Cuddapah and later Sureedu at Tadipatri railway station, where he was murdered by unidentified assailants as he got down from the train. The assailants sprinkled chilly powder on the gunman of Sureedu and later inflicted multiple injuries on him with hunting sickles till he died. The culprits then fled from the scene.

Talking to mediapersons, Anantapur Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Jain said their investigation revealed that gunman of Sureedu opened fire at random at the assailants.

The police are questioning the gunman of Sureedu.

As soon as the news spread Mr Reddy's supporters went berserk and attacked police and forcibly made the shopkeepers to pull down their shutters in Tadipatri and Dharmavaram. The police imposed Section 144 in tadipatri as precautionary measure.

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