HYDERABAD: One of the accused, Kandadi Srikanth Reddy, in the bribery case involving former Keesara tahsildar E Nagaraju was found dead at his residence in Kushaiguda on Sunday. Police said the cause of death would be ascertained after the autopsy. Prima facie, a case of unnatural death is registered, said A Manmohan, Kushaiguda Inspector. Srikanth Reddy’s father K Dharma Reddy, who was also accused in the case, was found hanging from a tree near his house in November 2020.
Meanwhile, Nagaraju, who is the main accused, was also found hanging in the Chanchalguda Central Jail, where he was remanded to judicial custody. He allegedly hanged himself using a towel. Since Dharma Reddy’s death, his wife K Venkatamma and son Srikanth were staying together. However, due to frequent quarrels, Venkatamma would stay with her daughter in Keesara. She would visit home twice a week to clean and go back to her daughter. On Sunday morning too, she came home for cleaning and found Srikanth dead. Venkatamma told police that Srikanth became addicted to liquor, due to which he fell ill and could have died due to the same.
Nagaraju was caught red-handed by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths in August 2020, while accepting a bribe. Later, ACB registered a second case against Nagaraju and others for illegally issuing passbooks pertaining to 24.16 acres of land worth `48 crore in Rampally village under the name of Dharma Reddy and others in July 2020 and arrested five more, including Srikanth Reddy, realtors Venkateshwar Rao, Ch Venkata Jagadeeshwar Rao, Ch Bhaskar Rao and K Venkatesh, who was then working as a computer operator at the Keesara tahsildar office.