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Updated: Mar 18, 2019 21:20 IST

Police in Andhra Pradesh have said the driver of YS Vivekananda Reddy, former minister and uncle of YSRC president YS Jaganmohan Reddy, killed the leader after a blood-stained letter was found from the crime spot in Kadapa district.

Vivekananda Reddy was found dead in his house by one of his domestic helps. He died after returning home from an election campaign for the YSRC candidate S Raghurami Reddy in Mydukuru assembly constituency.

“This fellow (driver Prasada Reddy) is killing me for asking him to come early in the morning for the election campaign,” the letter believed to have been written by the Vivekananda Reddy allegedly says.

Also read: Jagan Reddy’s uncle Vivekananda Reddy found dead, case of unnatural death filed

Kadapa’s superintendent of police Rahul Dev Sharma said while speaking to reporters on Sunday that Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter Sunitha and his personal assistant Krishna Reddy confirmed that the handwriting in the letter was that of the murdered leader. His handwriting samples have been sent for an expert opinion.

Krishna Reddy collected the letter from the crime scene in the morning and submitted it to the police only in the evening, the senior official said.

Sharma said, quoting Krishna Reddy, that he submitted the letter to the police late as Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter had asked him to withhold it. Sunitha told Krishna Reddy to keep the letter with him till she arrived at Pulivendula from the US since she apprehended a threat to the driver’s life, he said.

Sharma said the YSRC’s MP candidate YS Avinash Reddy called the local circle inspector from Krishna Reddy’s mobile phone and informed him of the murder. By the time the inspector reached the scene, Avinash Reddy and YS Manohar Reddy (Jagan’s cousins), Krishna Reddy and others were already present there.

The inspector saw that the blood-soaked blanket had been changed from the victim’s bed and deep wounds on his body were stuffed with cloth pieces, Sharma said.

He said that the post-mortem examination of Vivekananda’s body shows that he was murdered at 11:30pm on March 14 in his house. Vivekananda Reddy’s servants found his body lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom in the morning the next day, he said.

Police are examining the reasons behind the different versions given by his family members, who initially said Vivekananda Reddy died of a cardiac arrest even after they found him with injuries on his body. They later said he was murdered.

They are also probing the motive behind the murder and also the reason behind the family’s delayed complaint to police, Sharma said.

The murder has triggered a huge row between the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the opposition YSRC less than a month before the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party president Jaganmohan Reddy has alleged that the story of the letter was fabricated by police to save the “real culprits” involved in the crime. He has accused Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu of trying to eliminate his family in a meticulous manner.

“When the chief minister is behind the political killings involving our family, how can we get justice if our uncle’s murder case is investigated by the state police?” he asked.

Jagan Reddy also suspects TDP’s MP candidate in Kadapa C Adinarayana Reddy was involved in the murder of his uncle.

He met Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governor ESL Narasimhan in Hyderabad on Saturday and sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the killing of Vivekananda Reddy.

Naidu has rubbished Jagan Reddy’s allegations and said he was trying to get off the hook by seeking a CBI probe.

The Andhra Pradesh government has also constituted a special investigation team (SIT) headed by additional director general of police Amit Garg to probe the case.