7 held for killing paper owner

HYDERABAD: An accused in the Jubilee Hills bomb blast and six of his associates were arrested on Thursday for the kidnap and murder of a CA who ran a vernacular newspaper. Civil dispute between the main accused and the victim is said to be behind the killing.The accused had reportedly created a scene of accident and kidnapped the victim posing as good samaritans helping the injured get shifted to a hospital. The main accused, T Rajasekhar Reddy, hails from Kadapa and is said to have been close to slain faction leader Maddelacheruvu Suri. The deceased, V Chakrapani (64) of Jubilee Hills, used to work as a CA in Shambu Prasad and Sons Pvt Ltd and Nageshwar Rao Estates, who jointly ran a Telugu newspaper and hold prime property at Hanumanpet in Vijayawada.After the newspaper ran into losses, Chakrapani took over the management. "After the newspaper started to make profits, Shambu Prasad filed two suits against Chakrapani. Prasad later sold the property to former MP M Subbarami Reddy.Prasad won the suit in 2009 but Chakrapani went for an appeal to a higher court,'' city police commissioner AK Khan said. Rajasekhara Reddy then entered into an agreement to purchase the land and offered Rs3 crore to Chakrapani to withdraw the case. "But Chakrapani demanded `17 crore and Rajasekhara decided to eliminate him.’’ "On Feb 21 night when Chakrapani came out of Lions' Club Bhavan, one of the accused hit him with a Sumo and slashed his neck. They burnt the body at Kandi.