Hyderabad, January 04: Maddelacheruvu Suryanarayana Reddy hailed from Maddelacheruvu village in Kanaganipalle mandal in Anantapur district. His father Narayana Reddy was the MLA for Penukonda and had a running feud with Paritala Ravindra’s father Paritala Sriramulu.
Theirs was a contest of dominance and much blood flowed from the tit-for-tat killings. Sriramulu and his son Hari fell first and then Narayana Reddy himself in 1977. Upon the deaths of the patriarchs, Sriramulu and Narayana Reddy, the feud was bequeathed to their surviving sons.
In 1989, S Chenna Reddy, who was close to Suri’s family, became the MLA. He was done to death, allegedly by Paritala Ravindra and his close aide Pothula Suresh, disguised as naxalites. In the ensuing byelection, Chenna Reddy’s son Ramana Reddy became MLA.
Ramana Reddy and Suri were close friends. Paritala Ravindra went on the offensive. On Sankranti day in 1993, he allegedly had his servants deliver TV sets rigged up with explosives at the doorstep of his rival family. In the resultant blast, Suri’s mother, brother, sister and her two children and a maid servant died.
Suri was the lone survivor and he shifted his base to Bangalore, where he married Bhanumathi after a love affair. In 1997, in an act of vengeance, he masterminded a blast at Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad, which killed 23 persons. Its intended target was Parital Ravindra, who was there to participate in the shooting of film ‘Sriramulaiah’ but he survived.
Suri was arrested and sentenced him to life imprisonment and he was lodged in Cherlapalli prison but continued his operations using a cell phone from inside jail.
In 2005, Jan. 24, Parital Ravindra was assassinated and Suri was named as the prime accused although he was in jail.
Suri was finally released on bail seven months ago, with the proviso that he not live anywhere in Anantapur district. Suri went to Bangalore but orchestrated his vendetta activities from there. Until death caught up with him in Hyderabad on Monday. Suri is survived by his wife Bhanumathi and son Narayana Reddy (9).
—Agencies