Hyderabad, Dec. 22: A former minister has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the first such instance in the country for his involvement in a 1990 double murder.
Former Andhra Pradesh housing minister P. Ramsubba Reddy and seven others were sentenced today by metropolitan magistrate Justice Rajagopal Reddy in Hyderabad.
Relatives and supporters of the Telugu Desam Party leader from Kadapa district created unruly scenes outside the court, threw stones at police and shouted slogans against the ruling Congress after the landmark judgment was delivered.
Shankar Reddy and Lakki Reddy Gopal were hacked to death on the highway at Shadnagar, about 50 km from here, in a factional killing.
Factional killings result from hostilities between two village leaders that spill over into long-drawn, cyclic family fights. The victims were supporters of a Kadapa faction leader called Adinarayan Reddy. They were killed in retaliation to the murder of Ramsubba?s uncle, Shiva Reddy, at a marriage hall in Hyderabad.
?I am not directly involved in this faction murder. I have been indicted as part of a conspiracy,? the former minister said before his departure to Cherlapally jail, about 30 km from Hyderabad. He added he would consider moving the high court after consulting his lawyer, and expressed the hope that justice would be done.
Ramsubba, elected from the Jammalamadugu Assembly seat in 1994 and 1999, was not a minister at the time of the double murder. He was the third accused in the police?s FIR and had been arrested and released on bail.
Of the 11 accused in the case, eight have been convicted.
The Congress had protested against Ramsubba?s induction into the N. Chandrababu Naidu government in 1999 in view of the murder case pending against him.
A Lok Satta had blacklisted him and urged the Desam not to nominate him for the Assembly polls. But Ramsubba bagged the ticket for Jammalamadugu, which he lost.
The Desam criticised the verdict. One leader alleged: ?Everyone knows the truth that chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, hailing from Kadapa, is orchestrating (political) vendetta against his opponents.?
