Hyderabad blasts: Boy's death in blast saddens village

PALUVAI: A pall of gloom descended on Paluvai village of Rentachintalamandal when the body of the local youth, BommareddiLakshmiSrinivasa Reddy, who was killed in the Hyderabad bomb blast, reached here on Saturday.
An ardent devotee of Sai Baba, Srinivasa Reddy never missed visiting the temple at Dilsukhnagar every Thursday. He reportedly visited the temple on Thursday too.Although, he went there around 5.30 pm, the darshan was delayed as the city police commissioner Anurag Sharma himself was in the temple. Reddy completed his darshan soon after the commissioner left the place.
Srinivasa Reddy hurriedly reached the Dilsukhnagar bus stop and was one of the many who died on the spot in the bomb blast that ripped through the area. His sister Srilatha and brother-in-law Ramana Reddy ran from one hospital to another throughout the night, and at the end of the search, the couple was shocked to see Srinivasa Reddy's body at Osmania General Hospital.
Srinivasa Reddy, after completing his intermediate in Macherla three years ago, came here to stay with his sister at Saroornagar and pursue his degree. He was in the final year of B Sc (Computers) at Government City College.
His sister Srilatha and brother-in-law Ramana Reddy, a cab driver, panicked when they heard about the twin bomb blasts as they knew that Srinivasa Reddy had gone to the Sai Baba temple, which is not far from the terror attack site. While Ramana Reddy rushed to the spot but was unable to find his brother-in-law in the chaos. He virtually shouted Srinivasa Reddy's name in the crowd in the hope that he would find him
Srilatha kept continuously calling on her brother's mobile but found it switched-off. Srilatha suspected something went wrong and asked her husband to return home.
The terrified couple took the assistance of their landlord and started the search carrying his photograph. They visited almost all the hospitals where the injured were admitted.
They could not gain entry into the OGH till 4 am due to prevailing chaos. Their glimmer of hope of finding the boy safe was shattered when they went in. They were horror-struck to see the mutilated body of Srinivas Reddy among the other victims.
An hour later the entire village of Paluvai was woken to sad news. The boy's mother Pullamma was shell-shocked on hearing the news of her only son's death. Srinivas Reddy's father Kausalya Reddy, finding the going tough from his one-acre land, is working as a lorry cleaner.
Finding the going tough with having just one acre of land, Reddy's father Kausalya Reddy was working as a lorry cleaner. "My son dreamt of becoming an engineer," Pullamma wept inconsolably.
The locals recalled Srinivasa Reddy as a disciplined and hard-working student. He went to Hyderabad only to study well and get a good job so that his family would have a decent life, TDP leader Ch Krishnaiah said.
Local MLA P Ramakrishna Reddy, MLC TGV Krishna Reddy, DSP Ravula Giridhar visited the village and consoled the family.