HYDERABAD: After a cat and mouse game which lasted for over four days, state police finally caught up with TRS MLA
Vanama Venkateswara Rao
’s son
Vanama Raghavendra Rao
, who is the main accused in recent suicide pact case involving four members of businessman M Naga Ramakrishna’s family at
Paloncha
. Police arrested
Raghavendra
Rao at Dammapeta in
Kothagudem
district on Friday night.
The special teams of Kothagudem police intercepted Raghavendra (58), at Dammapeta on Friday night. "We intercepted him while he was traveling in a car. He is being brought to Paloncha," Bhadradri Kothagudem SP Sunil Dutt said.
While Ramakrishna mentioned the names of his mother Suryavati, sister K Lova Madhavi and Raghavendra in the suicide note which was found by cops after the incident on Monday morning, vocal protests from the opposition parties for the MLA son’s immediate arrest were triggered by the selfie video on Thursday wherein Ramakrishna alleged that Raghavendra had asked him to send his wife to Hyderabad for a personal meeting to favourably settle the property disputes of the family.
Pressure mounted on Kothagudem police teams after the video came out and special teams started scouring various places in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to locate Raghavendra. Police tracked his movements to Andhra-Telangana border areas and later to north coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh and then to Eluru, before he was finally intercepted at Dammapeta town in Kothagudem district close to West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
Meanwhile, police also issued a notice to Raghavendra on Friday asking him to appear before the investigating officer (IO) in another an abetment to suicide case registered at Paloncha town a few months ago.
Manuguru assistant SP P Shabarish, who was the IO of the abetment to suicide case of M Venkateswara Rao (40), registered on July 30, 2021, at Paloncha town police station, issued a notice to Raghavendra, asking him to appear for questioning in connection with the case on Friday.