VIJAYAWADA: The AP High Court on Wednesday granted conditional bail to five accused in the sensational Paritala Ravindra murder case. The quintet include P Narayana Reddy (A 3), V Rekhamaiah (A4), Bhajana Ranganayakulu (A5), A Kondaiah (A6) and Medimi Obi Reddy (A8).
The accused were granted bail after 18 years. The High Court directed the Anantapur district magistrate court to ensure that the five accused appear before the jurisdictional police station house officer on every Monday.
The court made it clear that their bail will be cancelled if they commit any crimes or indulge in anti-social activities.
It may be recalled that former minister and TDP MLA Paritala Ravindra alias Paritala Ravi was shot dead in broad daylight while he was coming out of the party office at Penukonda in Anantapur district on January 24, 2005. His gunman and one of his aides were also killed in the incident.
The CBI investigated the case, and concluded that the age-old rivalry between the families of Paritala Ravi and Congress leader Gangula Suryanarayana Reddy (Maddelacheruvu Suri) led to the murder, and that the latter hatched a conspiracy while he was undergoing sentence in the Jubilee Hills bomb blast case of 1997. The probe further revealed that Julakanti Srinivas Reddy (known as Moddu Srinu), P Narayana Reddy and Rekhamaiah shot Paritala Ravindra.
In August 2011, the Anantapur sessions court convicted eight persons in the murder case, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Cases against the three prime accused Suri, Moddu Srinu, and Tagarakunta Konda Reddy were abated as they were murdered in separate incidents during the case trial. Moddu Srinu was murdered in Anantapur jail on November 9, 2008. Suri was killed by his aide Bhanu Kiran on January 4, 2011 in Hyderabad over a property dispute.