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AP Cong leader's son detained

By Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
September 11, 2007

The Jubilee Hills Police in Hyderabad on Monday night took K Venkat, son of Andhra Pradesh Congress president K Keshav Rao, into custody in connection with a murder case registered against him on Sunday.

Venkat got himself admitted to the Apollo Hospital soon after the shooting incident in which his business partner B Prashant Reddy died under mysterious circumstances.

As soon as Venkat was discharged from the hospital, the police took into custody and drove him to Banjara Hills Assistant Commissioner of Police's office for questioning. His wife accompanied him.

ACP V Ramakrishnaiah said that the police wanted to record his statement. Till late in the night, Venkat was being interrogated.

The state government decided to entrust the murder case against Venkat to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state police, even as the postmortem conducted on Prashant's body at Osmania general hospital mortuary did not conclusively establish it as a case of suicide. A forensic doctor who performed the postmortem said, "The nature of bullet injury suggests that both possibilities (suicide or murder) are there."

Terming it a murder, the victim's Prashant's wife Vilasnini demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case.

Meanwhile, Keshav Rao, who sent in his resignation to the party high command and later air-dashed to Delhi on Monday, could not get an appointment from Sonia Gandhi. He is likely to call on her on Tuesday.

All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of AP affairs Digvijay Singh told newsmen in New Delhi, "As far as we are concerned, it (resignation) is a personal decision of the PCC president and decision will be taken on it by the Congress president. I am neither welcoming it nor dismissing it."

He indicated that a new PCC chief could be named in a week's time if Keshav Rao's resignation is accepted.

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

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