NIA says no conspiracy in Kodi Kathi case

Amaravati: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Vijayawada said there was no conspiracy in the Kodi Kathi case. It filed a counterargument on Thursday and submitted it to the Vijayawada special court for NIA cases.

What is the Kodi Kathi case?

The case date back to 25 October 2018 when Jagan Mohan Reddy was in the Opposition. He had injured his arm when a youth attacked him with a rooster knife at Visakhapatnam airport. The accused, Janapalli Srinivas Rao alias Chanti, was working as a service boy in Fusion Foods restaurant in Visakhapatnam airport on a contract basis.

The then TDP government had handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the state police. However, Jagan refused to record his statement saying he had no trust in the agencies controlled by the state government.

Further, YSRCP had moved the state High Court, seeking a probe by a Central agency into the case. Based on the court direction, the Centre handed over the case to the NIA on 31 December 2018.

‘No conspiracy’

On Thursday, in its letter, NIA said, “Despite a thorough investigation done by the NIA, no criminal conspiracy has come to light till date and role of no other person than accused Srinivasa Rao has surfaced during the investigation. The owner of M/S Fusion Foods in the Visakhapatnam Airport, Harshavardhan, had nothing to do with the incident.”

It added, “Further, the unfounded rumours doing the rounds on social media regarding the association of the accused Srinivasa Rao with any specific political party were thoroughly investigated, but no evidence has surfaced during the investigation that points towards any criminal conspiracy in the case.”

Srinivasa Rao was in police custody from 12 January 2019 to 18 January 2019. However, no evidence surfaced during the investigation that pointed toward the involvement of any other persons or political party in the attack. The investigation revealed that on 25 October 2018, Srinivasa Rao, without authorisation, entered the airport’s VIP lounge and stood beside Jagan Mohan Reddy, waiting for the right moment to attack him. “He aimed to attack his neck with a sharp object, with the intention to kill Jagan Mohan Reddy. He was observing Jagan’s travel pattern since his padayatra,” said the NIA report.

It further submitted that the present petition filed by the petitioner/LW-2 under section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code is untenable and without any merits.

The NIA added that now that the court has started investigating the case, there is no need for investigation agencies to carry on with their investigation.

It has pleaded to dismiss the petition filed by the victim/LW-2 (CM Jagan’s lawyer) requesting a further investigation in the interest of justice.