Mob attacks YSRC MLA after gang kills party leader in Eluru district

RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM:  Tension gripped G Kothapalli following the murder of village president and YSRC leader Ganji Prasad on Saturday. The leader was hacked to death allegedly by a seven-member unidentified, lethally armed gang around 7 am on Saturday when he was returning home from a nearby dairy booth. He died of head injuries, and one of his hands was severed, villagers said.

His supporters and family members later mobbed Gopalapuram MLA Talari Venkata Rao, accusing him of backing a rival leader. The MLA, also of YSRC, reached the village around 9 am, and was immediately surrounded by the irate mob, who alleged that he had encouraged the group led by Mandal Parishad Territorial Council member Bazaraiah. Prasad and Bazaraiah had been at loggerheads for the past couple of years, according to Superintendent of Police Rahul Dev Sharma.

Venkata Rao had gone to the village to console the bereaved family when he was attacked. A handful of policemen at the scene threw a security cordon around the lawmaker and whisked him away to the safety of a nearby government school.

The mob, however, followed the legislator and surrounded the school. Though outnumbered, police personnel held out against the sloganraising and stone-pelting mob for more than three hours before additional forces came in and shifted the MLA out of the village. After the police had shifted the MLA to the school, the mob pelted them with stones and deflated the tyres of police vehicles.