Naidu calls attack on Reddy a drama

Hyderabad: Even as the YSR Congress party president Jaganmohan Reddy was discharged from a private hospital in Hyderabad after treatment, the alleged knife attack on him remains shrouded in mystery.

With the ruling Telugu Desam and main opposition YSRCP pointing fingers at each other state, governor ESL Narasimhan rushed to Delhi and met the Prime Minister. Narasimhan, who had earlier sought details of the incident from the state police chief, submitted a report to the Prime Minister about the situation in the state.

Meanwhile, several questions about the incident remained unanswered. The most important of them was how a youth working as a waiter in airport canteen managed to bring a knife in the high security area and attack the leader of opposition. Second was why Reddy went ahead with his departure to Hyderabad with injury soon after such a major incident.

Reddy was discharged from the City Neuro Centre Banjara Hills on Friday and doctors advised him rest for another five days. Earlier officials of Special Investigation Team of Andhra Pradesh police met him in hospital to record his statement. But sources said that he refused to give any statement saying he had no faith in Andhra Pradesh police. He said he will give statement only if some other agency probes the incident. Later he left for his Lotus Pond residence in Hyderabad.

Reddy had suffered a bleeding injury on his left arm when a youth attacked him in the VIP lounge in Visakhapatnam airport on Thursday. The assailant J. Srinivas, a 30 year old college dropout, was caught on the spot and later handed over to the police.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in his first reaction to the incident called it an “orchestrated drama” and suspected the hand of “someone” in Delhi behind it.

He also wondered how the authorities at the airport and airlines allowed an injured person to travel.

“The airport is under Centre’s control. The incident happened right under the nose of the Central Industrial Security Force. The case was not handed over to the state police till 4.30pm though the incident happened around 12.34pm,” Naidu said.

The Chief Minister also wondered why Jagan left for Hyderabad even without lodging a complaint. “Even after landing in Hyderabad he went to his home. Later someone from Delhi might have advised him. So he checked into a private hospital,” Naidu said suspecting a conspiracy behind the incident to create political instability in the state.

Andhra Pradesh director general of police R. P. Thakur said that apparently the assailant attacked Reddy for the sake of publicity. He announced that a special investigation team (SIT) will probe the incident.

Meanwhile, YSRCP MLA and film actor Roja demanded that another film actor Sivaji should be questioned to reach to the bottom of the incident. Sivaji had said a few days ago that there could be attack on Reddy as part of BJP’s plan to destabilise Andhra Pradesh. “There should be a probe by CBI or by a sitting judge,” she said.

Another YSRCP leader Y.V. Subba Reddy said that the party will demand centre to order a probe in to the incident, as it did not have any faith in AP government. “The probe should be conducted by a neutral agency. We will also approach to High Court for such a probe,” he said.