The suspicious death of former Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Assistant Vigilance and Security Officer (AVSO) Y Satish Kumar, whose body was found on the railway tracks at Tadipatri on Friday morning, triggered a war of words between the YSR Congress party and the Telugu Desam Party.
Satish Kumar was a key witness in the alleged theft of currency in Parakamani of the Tirumala Temple in April 2023.
He was the one who caught C V Ravi Kumar, a head clerk at Jeeyar Mutt, for stealing foreign currency and later got the issue compromised at Lok Adalat.
Within hours of the news about Satish Kumar’s death surfaced, the YSRCP began issuing statements, blaming the special investigation team for the death and alleging that it was because of this harassment, he had committed suicide by jumping from the train.
YSRCP senior leader and former TTD chairman Bhumana Karunakar Reddy described Satish Kumar’s death as state-sponsored death and demanded a CBI probe into the circumstances that led to Satish Kumar’s suicide.
But the TDP shot back at the YSRCP and wondered how the YSRCP came to the conclusion that it was a suicide, even before the post-mortem of the dead body was conducted.
“The YSRCP has the track record of converting murders into suicided, as had happened in the case of Y S Vivekananda Reddy,” TDP leader N Vijaya Kumar said.
The Anantapur railway police registered a case of murder following a complaint from the family members of Satish Kumar, who suspected that the real accused in the Parakamani theft case might be behind the murder.
Interestingly, the initial post-mortem report also reportedly indicated that there was a serious injury on the backside of Satish Kumar’s neck, possibly due to an attack with a sharp weapon.
Yet, the YSRCP did not change its stand. On Sunday, party MLA Tatiparthi Chandrasekhar said the death of Satish Kumar is nothing short of a “government-engineered killing.”
He said Satish Kumar was mentally tortured by the SIT in the name of inquiry into the Parakamani theft case and was repeatedly pressured to name YSRCP leaders.
He asserted that the coalition government’s only intention behind the SIT probe was to frame YSRCP leaders, and Satish Kumar’s suspicious death occurred directly in this context.
Chandrasekhar said Satish left home at 7 PM and reached the railway station only at midnight, raising unanswered questions about what happened in those missing five hours. Within an hour of boarding the Rayalaseema Express, he was found dead near Tadipatri.
“Yet without any proper investigation or evidence, TDP leaders and yellow media channels launched a false narrative of murder, even claiming bizarre theories like an axe attack inside an AC coach, something no co-passenger or TTE ever reported,” he said.
He questioned why the post-mortem was rushed and why Satish Kumar’s wife’s phone was seized and access restricted, calling it a deliberate attempt to distort facts and divert accountability.