Jagan, two IPS officers booked for ‘attempt to murder’

Vijayawada : Guntur Nagarampalem police on Friday registered an attempt to murder case against former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, two senior IPS officers and two retired officers.

The case was registered following a complaint lodged by MLA K Raghurama krishna Raju of Undi in West Godavari district, that he was arrested and tortured by police in Guntur in 2021.

Raghurama Krishna Raju was YSRCP Lok Sabha member from Narasapuram constituency from 2019 to 2024. He had differences with former CM Jagan Mohan Reddy and revolted against the YSRCP.

Basing on the complaint by the former MP and current MLA, police booked a case on senior IPS officers P V Sunil Kumar of CB CID and P S R Sitaramanjaneyulu, a former state intelligence chief. The police also filed case on a retired police officer R Vijay Paul and former Guntur Government General Hospital superintendent G Prabhavati, according to information.

Vijay Paul and Prabhavati have retired. Krishna Raju has sent his police complaint through mail on June 10. The police filed the case on Friday.

Raju also alleged that he was subjected to ‘custodial torture’, and asked the police to take action on the accused. Nagarampalem police booked the five accused persons under IPC Sections 120 B, 166, 167, 197, 307, 326, 465 and 506 read with 34. Police invoked the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as the case is three-years-old.

The former MP has accused the former CM and the senior officials of ‘hatching’ a criminal ‘conspiracy’ against him. Raju, 62, alleged in his complaint that senior IPS officers former CID chief Sunil Kumar and intelligence chief Sitaramanjaneyulu, police officer Vijaya Paul and government doctor Prabhavathi were part of that ‘conspiracy’.

The former MP was arrested in May, 2021 in the middle of the Covid-19 second wave.

Krishna Raju alleged he was arrested on May 14, 2021 without due process and bullied, unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle, and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night.

He further said Paul was ASP CID and Jagan Mohan Reddy was the CM.

The MLA said there were threats to kill him for “criticising the former CM”.

Reacting to the FIR filed against him, Sunil Kumar wondered how a “new FIR” can be filed in a three-year-old case “rejected” by the Supreme Court. “I leave it to your wisdom to understand how an FIR can be filed anew in a case that has already been dismissed by the Supreme Court after three years of proceedings,” Kumar said in a social media post.