A large number of people from different walks of life bid a tearful adieu to the chairman of the Vaibhav Group Grandhi Manoj Kumar, who had been murdered in Bangalore, at the V-Square mall here on Friday evening.
The box containing the body was brought from the airport around 2 p.m. and kept at the lobby of the mall to enable his family members, relatives, friends, staff and others to pay their last respects. Manoj's wife and three daughters and his parents wept inconsolably. Many employees of V-Square and Vaibhav Group, who waited from the morning for the arrival of the body, broke down.
Manoj's business partner Kankatala Mallik and his friend and Pydah Group chairman Pydah Krishna Prasad were present throughout.
Sadguru Sivananda Murthy of Anandavanam (Bheemunipatnam), former Mayor D.V. Subba Rao, MLAs Panchakarla Ramesh Babu, Malla Vijaya Prasad, Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu and Avanthi Srinivasa Rao, CPI district council secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy and former MLA K. Haribabu were among those who paid tributes. As the body was being taken away in a procession, the employees shouted slogans: “hang those who are responsible for the killing”.
Mazeed, who started his career as a security guard with the Vaibhav Group 16 years ago, wailed inconsolably. “Sir had performed the marriage of two of my three daughters. I am a cancer patient. It would have been better if God had taken me away and spared him. He used to take keen interest in the welfare of the employees,” he said. Mazeed received the body at the airport and brought the coffin to mall and went to the burial ground.
Bandh observed
Gold merchants of the city downed their shutters and cloth merchants observed a half-day bandh on Friday to express their sympathy with the bereaved family.
