Cops foil plot to kill city businessman

A CRPF jawan among three held Hyderabad: West Zone Task Force Team and Banjara Hills police on Saturday arrested three persons, including a CRPF constable, and foiled their alleged attempt to kill a businessman in the City. They seized two country- made weapons from their possession. The arrested offenders were identified as Vala Laxmi Manohar Rao,50, of Hanamkonda, Thokala Babu,53, of Kothagudem and Bandi Vijaya Kiran, 30, a CRPF constable of Bhandara from the neighbouring state Maharashtra. According to police, in a land dispute at Sainikpuri, over 120 plots were sold on land that was claimed by Amarender Reddy of Banjara Hills and Narasimha Reddy. Manohar Rao, who had two plots, formed a plot-owners' association and approached court for settlement, but the case never got resolved till now even after incurring heavy expenses. Rao and other plot-owners bore a grudge against Amarender Reddy and planned to eliminate him by hatching a conspiracy. Rao approached one Thokala Babu, alleged to have naxallite connections, to settle the issue. Babu introduced Vijaya Kiran as a Maoist Action Committee member to Rao. Kiran, a CRPF constable in Maharashtrae, was offered Rs 25 lakh for settlement and Rs 2 lakh was paid as advance. To settle the issue, he procured letters of CPI (Maoist) of Chattisgarh with the help of Babu and wrote threatening letters to Bharat Chandra Reddy, brother-in-law of Amarender Reddy, in July 2012 and made threatening calls. Since there was no response to the threats, Kiran and another CRPF constable Bandi Rambabu of Gurjala, procured country-made weapons from Raigarh in UP. On February 10, 2013, in their bid to attack Reddy in his house, got into a skirmish with the latter's family members and had to escape from there. Kiran, who sustained a leg injury in the scuffle, later, made several threatening calls to Reddy to settle the land dispute. After receiving credible information, the police cracked the case and nabbed the accused on Saturday at Nandinagar, Banjara Hills. Police also said that Thokala Babu had initially involved a former naxalite Durgam Rambabu, who had taken an advance of Rs 5 lakh out of the Rs 25 lakh deal. But the deal was not executed as he was killed by a Maoist.