HYDERABAD: Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, BRS MP from Medak and the ruling party’s candidate from the Dubbak Assembly constituency, was stabbed by a 37-year-old Dalit, YouTube scribe Gaddam Raju, at Surampalli of Doultabad police limits in Siddipet on Monday afternoon.
Prabhakar Reddy, who was on his poll campaign, suffered from a grievous wound in his abdomen that needed emergency surgery to save his life. The injured leader was first rushed to a hospital in his vehicle in Gajwel, and then brought in an ambulance to Secunderabad.
Doctors at Yashoda Hospital in Secunderabad, who performed the surgery, declared on Monday evening that Reddy was "stable but in a critical condition."
The doctors said the MP would be kept in the ICU for the four to five days and monitored closely, adding that despite the complexity of the surgery Prabhakar Reddy tolerated it well.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who reacted strongly to the attack, accused the opposition parties of being behind the incident.
“These useless idiots, who cannot face elections, cannot work in the public domain are resorting to attacks with knives. There are so many of us here and if we resort to similar actions, they will have no place to hide. Do not test our patience. It was not an attack on Prabhakar Reddy, it was an attack on KCR,” he declared.
Rao questioned the Congress’s tactics in trying to promote violence. “Telangana society should reply to them through their vote. There have been several elections in the last ten years; sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but accepted people’s verdict. We did not indulge in such acts. If these attacks do not stop, we too have the guts but we do not believe in such actions.”
The Chief Minister’s comments came at public meetings he addressed in Banswada and Narayankhed in the afternoon.
In the evening, he visited the hospital and met with Prabhakar Reddy’s family and consoled them. He checked on the MP who was recuperating from the surgery and inquired from the doctors about Prabhakar Reddy’s condition.
Siddipet police said the attacker, Gaddam Raju, a 37-year-old Dalit scribe, who runs a YouTube channel, was allegedly upset that he was not selected for the Dalit Bandhu scheme. He has two profiles on his name on Facebook.
He stabbed Prabhakar Reddy in his abdomen with a knife at about 1.10 pm. BRS workers who were with Prabhakar Reddy caught Raju and beat him up before the police arrested him.
Raju was transferred to the Gandhi Hospital here where doctors said he was in a stable condition and was out of danger.
“Raju is in our custody and we registered a case under IPC 307 (attempt to murder) against him," Siddipet police commissioner Swetha Reddy said. He is a resident of Chepyala of Miridoddi mandal in Siddipet district.
Doctors at Yashoda Hospital said Prabhakar Reddy was brought to the facility just in time and inspection of the injury revealed that a section of his small intestine was perforated at four places through the stab wound on the right side of his abdomen.
“The surgery following a CT scan required a 15 cm incision on the abdomen, removal of 10 cm of the small intestine to prevent infection from leakages. He tolerated the surgery well and is stable but we will consider him to be not out of danger for the next four to five days during which he will be monitored 24x7 in the ICU,” the doctors said.
