Hyderabad, March 29: The brutality associated with the killing of former Maoist leader and TRS polit bureau member Konapuri Ilaiah is one of the reasons why investigators believe that it was the handiwork of former naxalite Nayeemuddin.
The ‘demonstrative violence’ exhibited in hacking to death of Ilaiah, who was more popularly known by his party nom de guerre Sambasivudu, and the decades-old rivalry between Nayeem and the former Maoist leader buttresses the theory of Nayeem’s involvement, argue police officers who had either handled or interacted with the elusive man.
That Nayeem and Ilaiah had scores to settle is an open secret. Nayeem was arrested a few days after the killing of DIG K.S. Vyas on January 27, 1993, and subsequently won over by the police prompting the erstwhile People’s War to train its guns on him. Ilaiah was believed to have been detailed by his party to ‘punish’ Nayeem. The animosity went to such an extent that Nayeem and Ilaiah challenged each other by issuing press statements too.
Cat and mouse game
It was in 2006 that a PW hit team led by Ilaiah almost succeeded in luring Nayeem to a place where they were to shoot him.
“For some reason, Nayeem did not go and was saved. Nayeem later learnt that it was a trap laid by a PW hit squad, after a naxalite was arrested,” a senior police officer recalled.
The cat and mouse game continued and when Ilaiah surrendered to the police in 2009, it was the turn of Nayeem to begin chasing him. Nayeem had by then amassed wealth by settling land disputes and had for sometime enjoyed covert patronage by senior police officers for his ‘unquestioned’ support in some high-profile operations. However, when his handlers realised that Nayeem had practically become a Frankenstein’s Monster, he was dropped like a hot potato.
Police officers suspect that the other motive for Nayeem to hit Ilaiah could be the latter’s sudden rise in politics and the possibility of Ilaiah challenging his position in Nalgonda and Ranga Reddy districts. Whichever naxalite surrendered from Nalgonda, Nayeem wanted him to work for him. Ilaiah apparently had higher ambitions and his foray into electoral politics was dramatic.
He was straight away inducted as a polit bureau member in the TRS. This could have been the other motive, intelligence officers reason out.
Demonstrative violence
The brutality with which Ilaiah was killed too had a definite ‘demonstrative’ purpose, very characteristic of Nayeem’s violence.
Officers recall the brutal incidents like the killing and dismembering of Belli Lalita in Nalgonda district, beheading of Eedanna, another former naxalite, whose trunk was dumped in Chilkalguda station limits, killing and dismembering of the body of Bayyapu Sammi Reddy, another former naxalite.
All these murders were committed by Nayeem’s gang, officers confide.
–Agencies