YS Viveka murder: Desperate YS Avinash Reddy blows lid on family's dark secrets

HYDERABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is racing against time to wind up its investigation into the YS Vivekananda Reddy murder case before the April 30, 2023 deadline set by the Supreme Court. But the swift developments in the recent past, marked by bitter charges and counter accusations, have only ended up opening a can of worms on some of the darkest secrets of the personal life of the deceased and the motives behind his murder.

By stepping on the gas, the CBI has only set the cat amongst the pigeons (read the victims’ family members, prime accused and the suspects). A murky phase of all of them washing their dirty linen in public has unfolded ever since the investigating agency aimed for the jugular of Kadapa MP YS Avinash Reddy and his father YS Bhaskar Reddy.

The CBI’s determination to go after YS Avinash Reddy prompted the Kadapa MP to blow the lid on YS Vivekananda Reddy’s extra-marital affairs and bigamy, in a desperate attempt to save his skin.

A pile of dossiers, spilling out YS Vivekananda Reddy’s alleged escapades in graphic detail, have been submitted to the CBI since the beginning of its investigation. Excerpts from the representations and an intervention petition filed by Avinash Reddy reveal these startling facts which aims to put a question mark on the fairness of the agency’s probe.

According to YS Avinash Reddy’s intervention petition submitted to the CBI earlier, YS Vivekananda Reddy fell prey to a ‘murder-for-gain’ plot and the personal and business disputes of the deceased with his own family and some of the accused were cited as the possible motives.

In one of the most explosive revelations, Avinash Reddy claimed that YS Vivekananda Reddy indulged in bigamy, having married one Shaik Shameem of the same district. He even fathered her son, something that is bandied about in Kadapa district as a proof of his severed relations with his first wife and daughter. He also claimed that YS Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter Dr Sunitha and Shameem were locked in a long-standing feud, largely centered around the properties registered in the name of the former minister's second wife.

Some of the representations also claimed that Dr Sunitha and her husband Narreddy Rajasekhara Reddy had issued open threats to Shameem and even grabbed the properties registered in her name by Vivekananda Reddy. According to YS Avinash Reddy, Dr Sunitha and her husband Rajasekhara Reddy could not take it lying low when YS Vivekananda Reddy proclaimed to groom his son, born to Shameem, as his political heir.

It was also alleged that YS Vivekananda Reddy had extra-marital affairs with women from the families of Sunil Yadav, Shaik Dastagiri and a few others, who incidentally are the main accused in the former’s killing.

A dispute over Rs 40 crores from a land settlement in Bengaluru is also said to have caused friction between YS Vivekananda Reddy and his long-time follower Yerra Gangi Reddy. Listing these as the possible motives for his uncle’s killing, YS Avinash Reddy has been pleading with the CBI to focus its investigation in this direction but with little positive response from the agency.

Interestingly, the same factors were listed by YS Avinash Reddy’s advocate during the hearing on his anticipatory bail petition in the Telangana High Court on Tuesday. This came when the High Court judge wanted to know the motives for the killing, from the petitioner’s perspective. The court was told that the CBI, while setting the main killers free on bail, was only hounding YS Avinash Reddy and his father YS Bhaskar Reddy, for reasons best known to it.

Who is speaking the Gospel truth?

In one of the rarest and weirdest scenarios, all the three main stake-holders in the case, the CBI, YS Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter Dr Sunitha and YS Avinash Reddy and co, are under a cloud of suspicion, faced with a heap of accusations and insinuations.

It was Dr Sunitha’s relentless fight that ensured that the sensational murder case was transferred out of Andhra Pradesh and to the Telangana High Court, as per the Supreme Court directions. Accusing the father-son duo of YS Bhaskar Reddy and YS Avinash Reddy of being the masterminds behind her father’s gruesome killing, she moved earth and heaven to get the CBI’s probe shifted towards this dimension. But those in the know of the feuds within the YSR family for generations see this as a fallout of a strong, pathological hatred of the Viveka family towards Bhaskar Reddy and his kin. And there flew the allegations that Dr Sunitha, along with her husband Narredy Rajasekhara Reddy and his brother, have colluded with the archrivals of the YSR family and chose to even ignore the prime killers in their desperation to firmly tighten the noose around YS Avinash Reddy.

Their detractors, including Avinash Reddy family, claim that Vivekananda Reddy was murdered for gain by people from his own inner circle. They even go to the extent of insinuating that no one else other than Dr Sunitha and her husband Rajasekhara Reddy could benefit most from this conspiracy, given the history of their property feuds with the second wife of Vivekananda Reddy. Making matters worse, YS Avinash Reddy, in several of his representations given to the CBI and the intervention petition filed with the agency, has repeatedly claimed that YS Vivekananda Reddy’s son-in-law was among the first people to know about the death, much before he was informed about it.

According to him, a letter purportedly written by YS Vivekananda Reddy and a few other pieces of evidence were hidden by his son-in-law well before the police arrived at the scene. YS Avinash Reddy makes this claim, out of many others, to counter the CBI’s accusation against him about destruction of evidence at the crime scene.

Neither Dr Sunitha nor her husband Narreddy Rajasekhara Reddy have so far come up with a categorical denial of the allegations made against them in the case.

CBI causing flutters with intriguing probe

“Caesar's wife must be above suspicion”. If one can take the liberty to use this in the present context, then, the CBI certainly faltered in living up to this venerated reputation. No investigation of a central agency in the recent past has come under the cloud of suspicion like the CBI’s approach in the YS Vivekananda Reddy murder case.

After a three-year lull, the premier probe agency reactivated its probe a few months back after being shaken out of its slumber by the Supreme Court. It was criticised for constantly being unidimensional in its investigation which warranted the replacement of its investigation officer Ram Singh.

Even the new investigation team drew flak for not paying heed to the pertinent points, repeatedly raised by the Avinash Reddy camp and for flaunting an attitude of persecution towards them. The CBI’s earlier discretion to make Shaik Dastagiri, one of the prime accused in the killing, as an approver in the case and giving its consent for his anticipatory bail has already blotted its image. Showing its teeth in the probe only from Dr Sunitha’s perspective and basing its pursuit of other subjects merely on Dastagiri’s testimony has been raising eyebrows.

Despite the nitty-gritties of the legalities, the common man is at a loss to comprehend and reconcile to the lack of sound logic and the all-encompassing element in the CBI’s overall approach in the case. Yerra Gangi Reddy and Shaik Dastagiri, two of the main accused who have even admitted to killing YS Vivekananda Reddy, are out on bail and roaming around freely. But the agency staunchly opposing anticipatory bail, in the same breath, to YS Avinash Reddy, citing destruction of evidence, is leaving even the best of legal luminaries bewildered. YS Avinash Reddy was named a co-accused in the case only recently.

The main premise for the CBI to corner YS Avinash Reddy, as it appears now, is the technical data from Google Takeout. The agency alleges the Kadapa MP’s complicity in the crime, citing his alleged meetings with some of the accused at his house before and after the murder. This is a charge that is being repeatedly rebutted by the YSRCP MP, who disputes the authenticity and accuracy of the CBI’s technical data.

Also, an observation made by the CBI counsel, during a heated argument in the Telangana High Court on Tuesday over Avinash Reddy’s petition for anticipatory bail, has not gone entirely unnoticed. While buttressing the agency’s contention that the MP should not be granted anticipatory bail, the CBI counsel quoted from the testimony of one of the accused Uma Shankar Reddy. He told the High Court that Uma Shankar Reddy was of the view that there was no possibility of YS Vivekananda Reddy being murdered without the involvement of YS Avinash Reddy and his family.

This, according to some legal experts, stood out as a vindication of YS Avinash Reddy’s contention and also the Supreme Court’s earlier observations that the CBI had failed to come up with any incriminating evidence while merely basing its case on the presumptuous statements of some of the accused. The Supreme Court, during its recent hearing on a petition filed by the kin of an accused, expressed its frustration at the CBI for merely citing ‘political conspiracy’ umpteen times in its affidavit while failing to furnish any corroborating evidence.

According to legal experts, the agency would need much more than the technical data and the presumptions to establish the role of YS Avinash Reddy.