CBI questions Jagan's OSD in Vivekananda murder case

The central agency also quizzed Naveen, who works in the house of the chief minister.

The CBI officials questioned the duo for six-and-a-half hours in Kadapa.

The federal agency had issued notice to Krishna Mohan Reddy and Naveen on the basis of call data of Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy.

The CBI officials are understood to have questioned the duo as to what had happened on the day when Vivekananda Reddy was murdered. They collected information about phone calls made or received by them.

Last week, the CBI questioned Avinash Reddy, who is a cousin of the chief minister. He was grilled for more than four-and-a-half hours.

Vivekananda Reddy, paternal uncle of Jagan Mohan Reddy, was found murdered mysteriously at his residence at Pulivendula in Kadapa district on March 15, 2019, a month ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The 68-year-old former state minister and former MP was alone at his house when unidentified persons barged in and killed him. He was killed hours before he was to launch the YSR Congress Party's election campaign in Kadapa.

Though three Special Investigation Teams (SITs) conducted the probe, they failed to solve the mystery.

The CBI took over the investigation into the case in 2020 on the direction of Andhra Pradesh High Court while hearing a petition of Vivekananda Reddy's daughter Sunitha Reddy, who raised suspicion about some relatives.

The CBI filed a chargesheet in the murder case on October 26, 2021, and followed it up with a supplementary chargesheet on January 31, 2022.

In November last year, the Supreme Court transferred to a CBI court in Hyderabad the trial and probe into the larger conspiracy behind the murder.

The apex court observed that doubts raised by Sunitha Reddy about getting a fair trial and investigation in Andhra Pradesh were reasonable.

--IANS ms/pgh

( 349 Words)

2023-02-03-21:28:02 (IANS)