Chandrababu Naidu is an angry man, perhaps a wee bit worried as well, after the killing of Paritala Ravi. ‘‘I have learnt that I too am on their hit list. I also have information that they are targetting five of our senior party leaders,’’ he said.The ex-CM swears it was the police, particularly the IG of Rayalaseema, R.P. Meena, who had organised the killing of his trusted acolyte for Chief Minister Y. Rajasekhara Reddy and his son Jaganmohan.Naidu claims that Meena had a grouse against his party, the TDP. ‘‘We had punished him for irregularities and blocked his promotion when I was the CM. When Reddy assumed power, Meena got all charges dropped and got himself posted as IG, Rayalaseema. We had protested the posting of an officer like him in an area as sensitive as Rayalaseema, but the Chief Minister had other plans for using him’’ he says.Meena, on the other hand, claims he was done in by TDP, and the new government had only reprieved him. ‘‘My only fault was that I exposed and put a stop to a major scam involving crores during the last government.’’‘‘Eversince I took charge five months ago, I have hauled up 26 factionists from both TDP and Congress under the NSA,’’ he says.Naidu rubbishes his claims, ‘‘He had arrested mostly TDP workers, many of them innocent. We will not spare him.’’Refer to Paritala Ravi and Meena reels out a long list of cases that trailed the murdered MLA — from kidnapping to assault to murder. ‘‘He had his share of enemies. We gave him all the protection he wanted, but we were not informed that he was going to the TDP office the day he was killed. There was nothing the police could do,’’ says the IG.He also reveals that the police had information that Ravi was planning to regroup and restructure his extremist outfit in the wake of the breakdown of peace talks between the government and the Naxalites. ‘‘We had specific intelligence inputs that his men had stocked up sophisticated weapons, including AK-47 rifles,’’ he notes.The former chief minister, however, sees Ravi in another light. ‘‘Ravi was an extremist before he joined TDP, and he would have some cases against him from those days. But the important thing is, he was never convicted,’’ he asserts.Goldsmith arrested in Paritala murderANANTPUR: Pit-pit Basha alias Bangaru Basha, a goldsmith accused of financing the murder of TDP MLA Paritala Ravi, was arrested on Sunday while he was giving an interview to a TV channel. Six others are being questioned, while a hunt is on for hitmen Srinivas Reddy and Narayana Reddy, said District SP R.S. Praveen Kumar.
