VIJAYAWADA: In what could be a major development in the sensational Rs 40-crore freedom fighter’s land scam involving some big names, officials of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) added the names of TDP corporator Ganduri Mahesh and another person Panuku Ramesh to the charge sheet after investigating the case. On Saturday, CID officials submitted their revised charge-sheet to the third additional chief metropolitan magistrate court.
The CID officials, who started their investigation pertaining to a case filed by Kesireddy Suresh and Srinivas, grandsons of the deceased freedom fighter Kesireddy Suryanarayana, in 2016 alleging that their land in Ajit Singh Nagar was encroached by unidentified persons, filed a charge-sheet in November 2017 and added eight names to it, including Vijayawada Central MLA Bonda Umamaheswara Rao’s wife Bonda Sujatha.
In the charge-sheet, the CID officials named Shaik Abdul Masthan as prime accused, Ramireddy Koteswara Rao, a lorry driver, as A2, Tirumala Raju Veera Venkata Suryanarayana Varma as A3, Guntupalli Aswatha Rama Rao as A4, Yerkareddy Sindhush Reddy as A5, Voleti Sitamahalakshmi as A6, builder Maganti Babu as A7 and Bonda Umamaheswara Rao’s wife Bonda Sujatha as A8 in the case.
After the charge-sheet was filed, the land scam became sensational with the alleged involvement of MLA Bonda Umamaheswara Rao and his aides Maganti Babu, corporator Ganduri Mahesh and Panuku Ramesh.
Following the allegations of suspected involvement of officials in tampering with the documents and fake registrations, District Collector B Lakshmikantham ordered an inquiry by revenue officials and asked all the accused to appear for interrogation.
“During the course of our investigation, we found that Maganti Babu, Ganduri Mahesh and Panuku Ramesh created fake ownership documents in the name of Shaik Abdul Masthan, Suryanarayana Varma and Aswatha Rama Rao for the land in question.
Also, Ramireddy Koteswara Rao confessed that Ganduri Mahesh and Panuku Ramesh took advantage of that and forcibly made him sign papers agreeing to arrange loan by pledging his property papers,” said CID inspector M Venkatanarayana.
With their involvement in the scam having been proved, CID officials included Ganduri Mahesh and Panuku Ramesh to the revised charge-sheet and sent it to court for further action.