Tirupati: All five accused in the sensational double murder of then Chittoor mayor Katari Anuradha and husband Katari Mohan, who were shot dead in the municipal office in 2015, were sentenced to death by a district sessions court in AP on Friday.The murder was planned and executed by Mohan’s nephew S Chandrasekhar alias Chintu, who confessed to the cops that he killed the couple as they had sidelined him politically despite helping Anuradha become the first woman mayor of Chittoor, and even going to jail for them.On Friday, the court of VI additional district sessions court in Chittoor described the crime as “rarest of rare” while sentencing to death Chintu and four others – Venkata Chalapathi, Jayaprakash Reddy, Manjunath and Muniratnam Venkatesh. The court also ordered Chintu to pay a total compensation of Rs 70 lakh – Rs 50 lakh to the Katari family and Rs 20 lakh to eyewitness and complainant Satish Naidu.The murder unfolded on Nov 17, 2015, at around 11.05 am. Chintu and Venkata Chalapathi entered the Chittoor municipal office after confirming the presence of Anuradha and Mohan inside the mayor’s chambers. The two wore burqas while the others waited in the building.The duo barged into the mayor’s chambers and Chintu shot Anuradha in the head even as she pleaded to forgive her, according to the chargesheet. Though Mohan tried to save himself by running out, the five men hacked him with hunting sickles. Venkata Chalapathi then shot dead Mohan. After the murder, all the men escaped.Based on a complaint from Satish Naidu, Chittoor I town police registered a case. During investigation by then Chittoor SP Ghattamaneni Srinivas and DSP M Lakshmi Naidu, police recorded the statements of 59 witnesses and subsequently arrested 22 people. Chintu had also surrendered before a Chittoor local court a fortnight later on Nov 30.During his custodial interrogation, Chintu confessed to killing them over a long-standing grudge for ignoring him.Chittoor police had named 23 in the final chargesheet, but one person died during the trial and 17 others were discharged by the court recently.After the verdict, the five convicts were shifted amidst right security to the Kadapa central prison. The Chittoor district police wing had also clamped Sec144 across the town as a precautionary measure.While relatives of the former mayor hailed the judgment and maintained that justice was delivered after a decade, counsel for the convicts told reporters that they will appeal in the AP high court.
