ELURU: Seven more people have been arrested by the police here for allegedly playing a role in a conspiracy to assassinate Denduluru MLA Chintamaneni Prabhakar.
Sources in the Andhra Pradesh police said weapons being readied for the planned murder were seized from the men.
The alleged plot to kill Chintamaneni Prabhakar, a member of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), was revealed a couple of days ago and police took into custody Reddy Appala Naidu, a former sarpanch of Venkatapuram village in Eluru Rural mandal and also a member of the TDP.
According to DSP G Venkateswara Rao of the Eluru Rural police district, Appala Naidu had for some time nursed political enmity against Chintamaneni Prabhakar and therefore plotted to have him murdered. He engaged one Yarlagadda Durga Rao alias Pandu and gave him Rs 1.5 lakh as an advance payment for the murder.
Pandu allegedly enlisted the help of Sk Yakub, Sk Latif, Sk Nagoor, B Harish Kumar, B Ratna Kumar,S Suresh and R Purandar and conducted a recce of Prabhakar’s movements.
The plot was unraveled when Pandu was taken into custody on the basis of a separate police complaint and spilled the beans on the murder plot. That led to the arrest of Reddy Appala Naidu three days ago.
It also came to light during the interrogation of the accused that they were planning to murder two more persons -- J Jairaju and Pamarthi Madhu -- both realtors apart from the Denduluru MLA.
All the nine men accused in the conspiracy case have been arrested and remanded in judicial custody.