TRS leader K Ramulu shot dead

Hyderabad: TRS leader and former Naxalite K. Ramulu was shot dead by armed assailants on Sunday as he was coming out of a function hall in Nalgonda after attending a marriage.

Ramulu, brother of former state CPI Maoist chief K. Sambasivudu, had been on the hit-list of renegade Naxal leader Nayeemuddin. The Nalgonda police is probing the involvement of Nayeem in the murder as it had been reported that the latter had given a supari to kill Ramulu.

Nayeem is also the key accused in the murder of Sambasivudu. He is believed to have many contacts in the police department. Though Ramulu had been provided armed security by the police, they could not intervene. The gunmen said that the assailants used chilli powder to immobilise them.

Ramulu lived in LB Nagar under the Cyberabad police Commissionerate and was a vice-president of the TRS.

Nalgonda SP T. Prabhakar Rao said, “As there was a serious threat to him, we had provided him with security and had also asked him to inform us whenever he visited Nalgonda. He didn’t inform us regarding Sunday’s visit and came to attend the marriage of a local TRS leader’s daughter.”

“As he came out of the Baigh Function Hall, the suspects, seven to eight of them, attacked him. They overpowered the guards with pepper spray and chilli powder, shot Ramulu and fled,” he said, adding that several suspects and associates had already been picked up.

“We have picked up the associates of the accused involved in the earlier murder of Ramulu’s brother Sambasivudu,” said Mr Rao.

Sources added that Ramulu had attended the marriage of former Naxal and BSP leader Parvatalu at Nalgonda. The assailants, after firing seven rounds at him, threatened other guests at the marriage and fled the scene. Ramulu died on the way to the hospital.

TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao too was in Nalgonda on Sunday, as well, attending the marriage of TRS leader B. Narendar Reddy. Ramulu had survived attempts on his life earlier in Pochampally, Kottapet and Choutuppal. His brother Sambasivudu had been killed in 2009 and the police had arrested several accused who had taken Rs 5 lakh for the supari killing.