The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Hundreds attend funeral of Vasanth

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 19, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Hundreds attend funeral of Vasanth

By Our Staff Reporter

WARANGAL, JAN. 18. Hundreds of people, mostly TRS workers, including its leaders, attended the funeral of Nalla Vasanth at Oglapur village of Atmakur mandal.

Mr. Vasanth was killed in an exchange of fire between the police and Maoists on Sunday near Kamaram village.

The Hanamkonda Member of Parliament, B. Vinod Kumar, TRS MLA, Mandadi Satyanarayana Reddy, and scores of others reached the village in the early hours and later staged a rasta rook protesting against the `encounter'.

MLA's allegations

Mr. Satyanarayana Reddy accused the police of whisking away Vasanth before bumping him off and also alleged that the police misled both the Chief Minister and Home Minister.

Mr. Reddy said Vasanth once worked with the naxals but he surrendered and later joined the separate Telangana movement. "Perhaps he went there to meet the naxals. There is nothing wrong as the Home Minister himself met the top naxal leaders. The police should have arrested him and initiated action as per law,'' he contended.

Many of the TRS leaders refused to express their feelings and maintained that the party would soon take a decision on its future course of action.

Mr. Vasanth's wife, Radhakka, who was a former naxal, said her husband left home stating he was leaving for Hyderabad as he was summoned by the party. But, the police believe that he left home two days prior to the encounter. The police reportedly were in possession of important telephone numbers found in the diaries of several naxal leaders including that of Vasanth's. They were working on them to verify their nexus with the extremists.

Activists resign

Meanwhile, about 25 TRS workers holding positions at local bodies and in the party submitted their resignations to the party. They demanded that the Ministers belonging to the TRS should also quit the Government. They apprehended that they would be targeted either by the police or by naxals.

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Andhra Pradesh