Hyderabad Murder: Out for morning walk, CPI neta shot dead by ‘friend’; wife sensed danger, had warned him | Hyderabad News
HYDERABAD: Over an hour before her husband was shot dead, K Chandu Naik’s wife had first spotted the alleged accused hovering around their house. K Nari Bai claimed that she saw Rajesh driving in the area along with three others around 6.10 am and that she even had an inkling about him trying to harm Chandu. “They overtook me slowly in the car. I stopped to see where they were going. The car went ahead, and a little later, my husband came on a two-wheeler and took me and our daughter to the park,” said the victim’s wife, speaking to reporters outside the mortuary on Tuesday.
The couple’s daughter, Sindhu, is preparing for her civil services exams, while their 26-year-old son, Siddhu, is pursuing MTech from a university in Canada. “I told my husband about spotting Rajesh. Initially, we dismissed it, thinking that he might be casually going on that route for some work. But then I spotted him again while returning home with my daughter and got a little worried,” Nari Bai said, adding, “We saw the car near the park and the three people inside it. They were resting with their faces covered with handkerchiefs. Shortly afterwards, I was informed about the murder.” According to her, Rajesh and Chandu were close friends until about two years ago. “They fell apart when Rajesh started collecting money from hut dwellers residing on Bhoodan lands in the Kuntloor area. He was offering to provide them with pattas. My husband opposed it, and since then, Rajesh stopped visiting our house,” Nari Bai said. “I came to know from common friends that he was planning to harm my husband and directly confronted him at his house recently. He said I was misinformed. My husband used to say that Rajesh kept firearms. Whatever differences he had with my husband, he should not have resorted to killing. Now, I want stringent punishment for him,” she said.‘Personal rivalry’CPI national leader K Narayana said that Chandu Naik was a party worker but maintained that the murder had nothing to do with politics. “It was due to personal rivalry,” Narayana said. The victim, a native of Nagarkurnool district, started his political career with CPI (M) but was expelled from the party in 2009 as part of disciplinary action. Subsequently, he joined CPI. The main accused, Rajesh, was the general secretary of CPI-ML (Liberation) until three years ago. “He was expelled in 2022 for disciplinary reasons,” the party’s general secretary, Ramesh Raja, said. According to him, Rajesh started claiming to be the leader of the CPI-ML (Red Flag) party in Telangana after his expulsion.
