The 60 employees of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation ltd, were among the people who have come forward to lodge complaints with the police against the gang of the notorious slain gangster Nayeemuddin.
The employees have approached Bhongir Police station in Nalgonda district on Wednesday complaining that Nayeem’s gang had forcibly encroached upon their house sites which they had purchased on installments near Bommaip-ally village about ten years ago.
After the land was registered in their names, when the employees visited the area, one of Nayeem’s associate Pocham Srinivas along with others threatened them with dire consequences if they step on the land. “They told us that the land was purchased by Bhai Sahab”, one of the employees told the police. The gang had also warned them to hand over the original documents of the land.
As the victims were employees and could not run around to save their lands in the face of serious threats to the life and security, they had given up the hopes of ever recovering their house site. However after Nayeem’s death in an encounter recently and police urging the victims to come forward with their complaints, the HPCl employees gathered courage to lodge the police complaint.
Sub Inspector Sajid Ali said that after registering the complaint the case was handed over to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which has recorded the statement.
The SIT has so far received more than 150 complaints from different parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh of extortion and land grabbing.
Meanwhile, a senior Congress leader and Member of legislative Council K Rajagopal Reddy has alleged that Nayeem had threatened to kill him if he did not withdraw from contesting the Council elections. He told a Congress party meeting that 99 per cent of the names in Nayeem’s diary belonged to the TRS leaders who had used the gangster’s services to threaten their opponents. Reddy also hails from Nalgonda district, which was the hotbed of the gangster’s activities.
So far during the probe the police have found 7 terabyte data from Nayeem’s hideouts including a large number of photographs featuring politicians and the police officials with the gangster.
After the entries in Nayeem’s diary and the information on his pen drives and hard disks of his computers, the photographs were the latest evidence the SIT has found of his close links and contacts with the politicians and the police officials sending ripples across political establishments and the police department.
“It was perhaps with the intention of blackmailing the leader and the police officials that Nayeem had taken these photographs and preserved them on his hard disks”, a senior official said. Many of these politicians were from Nalgonda districts, police said.
While going through the heap of information, the SIT is coming across more and more startling details of Nayeem’s activities and his reach. “It will take some more time for the complete picture to emerge”, the official said adding that those feature in the diary and the photos will be summoned one by one for questioning.
From these records, covering the two decades long career of Nayeem in crime, the SIT officials have concluded that such was the terror of Nayeem and his writ ran so effectively in the district that almost all the politicians vied with each other to maintain cordial and close relations with him and took his help especially at the time of the elections.
In exchange of his help and allowing his name to be used, Nayeem took shelter and protection of the political leaders and the police officials to evade his arrest and any other action by the law.
A present cabinet minister and a MlC was among the politicians whose photographs with the gangsters were found with the gangster, the sources said.
The SIT was also searching for the money which Nayeem had made through private settlements of land and other disputes. As Nayeem worked as a naxalite for many years, police believe that he may have used the same methods as the Maoist to maintain a dump of money, weapons and other valuable somewhere only known to him.
Meanwhile the police was also looking for a former Maoist Sheshanna who was a key associate of Nayeem and believe to have carried out many tasks for him.
While many other associates and family members were arrested by the police, Sheshanna and few other senior members of the gang were untraceable since Nayeem’s death in encounter. Police officials say that until Sheshanna was caught fears will linger that the remaining members of the gang will gather under his leadership and continue Nayeem’s activities.
Sheshanna was the prime accused in the murder of Patolla Govardhan Reddy, another prominent gangster. Nayeem had so much confidence in Sheshanna that anybody who wanted to meet Nayeem would have to come only through him.