Mayor of the Chittoor municipal town, Katari Anuradha (50) and her husband, Katari Mohan (56), both belonging to the Telugu Desam Party, were killed in a gang attack here on Tuesday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, Anuradha and Mohan were in the mayor’s chamber at 10.50 a.m. interacting with some corporators and their supporters, when the gang struck.
Four members of the gang, three of them clad in black burqas, barged into the chamber despite the attendant at the door objecting to their entry.
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Two other assailants were waiting on the corporation office balcony.
On entering the chamber, they stabbed Katari Mohan (sitting besides his wife) with a knife in the neck and stomach. When he ran into the adjoining council room, they fired at him, hitting him in the stomach.
Later, the assailants attacked Anuradha. One of them shot her twice in the head and knifed her in the stomach.
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Satish, a supporter of Katari Mohan, was injured when he tried to prevent the attack.
Ananda, a corporator’s husband, shouted at the assailants when they barged into the mayor’s chamber, seeing the trousers under the burqa. However, the attackers pushed him away.
The municipal staff and TDP workers rushed Anuradha and Mohan to the Government General Hospital at Chittoor. While the doctors declared Anuradha brought dead, Mohan was rushed to the Christian Medical College Hospital at Vellore, 30 km from Chittoor.
He was immediately operated on but did not respond to treatment and died of his wounds in the night.
After the attack, the gang came to the corporation office complex. While four of them escaped, scaling the compound wall close to the office, two others left in an SUV. While fleeing, the assailants threw away black gloves and burqas at the scene of the attack and outside the chamber. The police recovered the materials and some knives.
The couple have two daughters and one son, all married.