Hyderabad, Jan. 3: Suryanarayana Reddy, the gangster whose violent life inspired the film Rakta Charitra, was shot dead on a Hyderabad road this evening by three men while he sat in his car.

Police said the unidentified trio shot at Reddy, also known as Suri, at a traffic junction when he was sitting in his Skoda Fabio. He was returning home after a visit to his lawyer and was with minimum security — just the driver and a lone gunman, who was seriously injured.

Reddy took five bullets in the head and chest.

He was taken to Apollo Hospital in the posh Jubilee Hills, where he also had his house. Doctors said he had lost a lot of blood.

The hospital said he died two hours after being given emergency medication.

Reddy was released on bail in 2008. He was an accused in the 2005 assassination of Paritala Ravindra, a Telugu Desam legislator who was his rival in a decades-long faction feud.

Reddy’s rivalry with Ravindra, the subject of the film Rakta Charitra, started after Reddy’s entire family was killed in a bomb blast in his village in Anantpur district.

Anantapur is part of the backward Rayalaseema region, known for factional killings, many times in merciless ways.

“It is so fierce that men and women in some families look for a chance to kill their rivals and wait for years,” said a senior police officer who has worked in Anantpur.

In Rakta Charitra and its sequel, Reddy’s character was played by Tamil star Surya.

The role of Paritala Ravindra was played by Viveik Oberoi.