Main accused arrested in CM stone attack case

Vijayawada: In a major breakthrough, the Vijayawada police on Thursday arrested a 19-year-old in relation to Saturday’s stone attack on Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, which left him injured on the forehead. The accused was Vemula Satish Kumar alias Satti, a resident of Vaddera Colony in Ajith Singh Nagar. The Principal Junior Civil Judge’s Court remanded him to 14 days’ custody after the police produced him in court in the afternoon.

Notably, names of several Telugu Desam-linked persons, including its Vijayawada Central Assembly seat aspirant Bonda Umamaheshwara Rao, had been in circulation in recent days about their suspected involvement in the attack. The police did not mention Umamaheshwara Rao or others in the remand report. 

On Thursday, arguments were made in the court on behalf of both sides. Abdul Salim, counsel for Satish, argued that he was a minor and had no criminal record. How could the police file a case of attempted murder for an act of ‘throwing a stone’.

It was brought to the attention of the court that Section 307 was not applicable in this case. Counsel said the date of birth details given by the police and the date on Satish’s Aadhaar did not match. The date of birth in the Aadhaar card should be taken into account, he stressed. A lawyer, on behalf of the police, argued that the CM was attacked with a stone. This was done with malicious intent. ‘Attempt to murder’ section was applicable, he said.

After hearing the arguments, the court said it would consider the certificate given by the municipal authorities regarding the date of birth. The accused was ordered to be remanded till May 2. The stone was thrown at the Chief



Minister during the 'Memantha Siddham' election campaign at Vivekananda School in Ajith Singh Nagar on the evening of April 13. Satish was identified as Accused 1 (A-1), while another individual, Vemula Durga Rao, was named A-2. “Satish threw the stone at Jagan Reddy under the instigation of Durga Rao, a political party activist,” the remand report said without explicitly naming the TD.

The report stated that Satish, under Durga Rao’s guidance, had intentionally hurled the stone at Jagan Mohan Reddy with the intent to harm or kill him. The police said the investigation in the case was incomplete and they were yet to examine some more witnesses, to analyse technical evidence apart from collection of some more evidence. 

The remand report stated that Al (Satish) was convinced by the proposal of his instigator and agreed to do the same. “He implemented the plan on April 13, at 08.04 pm, by standing beside a group of people at the Vivekananda School, AS Nagar, in Vijayawada.” “He picked up a sharp-edged cement concrete stone from his pocket and strongly threw it at the temporal part of the head of Jagan Reddy with an intention to cause a deadly shot against him, so as to do away with the CM’s life, as per the prior agreement/conspiracy (sic).” 

The police said, “Luckily the CM survived the attack. The sharp-edged cement concrete stone missed hitting the sensitive temporal part of the CM’s head, and it touched a spot above the left eye of the CM.” "After examining all the evidence and recording the statements of 12 witnesses, we filed an ‘attempted murder’ case against Satish," the police report added.