An uneasy calm prevailed in and around the Viswa Bharathi Hospital as night settled over Kurnool on Tuesday, 23 May, with YSRCP workers and leaders continuing their siege of the institution to “protect” Kadapa MP YS Avinash Reddy from a team of CBI officials ostensibly in the city to arrest him.
The YSRCP cadres seemed unable to read the mind of the CBI officials over whether they would detain Avinash Reddy or would wait until his petition for anticipatory bail is heard in the Telangana High Court on 25 May.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court, providing relief to Avinash Reddy, asked the Telangana High Court’s Vacation Bench to hear his petition for anticipatory bail on Thursday.
The court said: “As no orders were passed on our direction on 24 April that the anticipatory bail plea be heard by the high court, we direct the petition be placed before the next Vacation Bench on 25 May.”
Avinash Reddy has been attending to his mother Sri Lakshmi in the hospital since 19 May, after she complained of cardiac pain.It was the day he had been summoned to the CBI office in Koti, Hyderabad, for questioning.
He did not go, nor did he go when summoned next on Monday, 22 May — prompting the CBI to arrive in Kurnool to apparently effect an arrest.
The CBI is seeking to arrest Avinash Reddy in connection with the sensational murder of his uncle and former Andhra Pradesh minister YS Vivekananda Reddy, popularly known as Viveka.
Viveka, who is also the paternal uncle of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, was murdered in his Kadapa house on the intervening night of 14-15 March, 2019, and the CBI contends Avinash and his father, Bhaskar Reddy — who is already in custody — had a hand in the murder.
By evening on Tuesday, a large contingent of the local police has been posted at the hospital to prevent any breakdown of law and order in the event of the CBI arresting Avinash Reddy.
The YSRCP activists were also present in equal strength, waiting for the first sign of action from the CBI.
