NIA Grills Vizag Airport Restaurant Owner Harshavardhan 

Visakhapatnam: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) interrogated owner of Fusion Foods restaurant at the Visakhapatnam airport, Harshavardhan Chowdary with respect to the murder attempt on Leader of Opposition in AP assembly and YSR Congress party president, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on October 25, 2018 at Vizag airport. Harshavardhan, a TDP activist is said to have been a TDP ticket aspirant in 2014 and is being described as a key witness in the case. It may pertinent to point out that the attacker Janupalli Srinivasa Rao was an employee at Harshavardhan's restaurant.

Interestingly, while questions regarding a conspiracy were raised in a section of the media, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did not appear to probe this dimension with the gravity it merited. Harshavardhan Chowdary went off the radar once the NIA sent notices to him. However, he reached out to the probe agency after Sakshi put out a new item saying Harshavardhan had gone incommunicado. He claimed he was at home, recovering from an accident.

NIA officials subsequently went to Harshavardhan Chowdary's house in Gajuwaka and questioned him. Harshavardhan's responses to their questions were recorded. It is learnt that among the questions he was asked was how he came into contact with the Srinivasa Rao, how the attacker was given a job at the restaurant in the airport without an NoC, why the knives concealed in the restaurant went unnoticed for so long.

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