Hyderabad, Oct 18 (UNI) The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) today appealed to the Union Home Minister Shivaraj Patil to accord permission to CBI to prosecute Dr Kodela Shivaprasada Rao, former TDP Minister and official spokesperson of the party in the bomb blast case of 1999, in which four persons were killed.

In a letter to the Union Minister, party chief whip N Kiran Kumar Reddy and CLP Executive Committee member V Vasanta Kumar said on August 28, 1999, a bomb blast rocked the nursing home-cum-residence of Dr Shiva Prasada Rao, killing four persons.

But the then NDA government did not give permission to the CBI to prosecute the TDP leader as 29 TDP MPs were supporting the government at the Centre.

The Congress leaders said on a petition by Congress MLA Kasu Krishna Reddy, the High Court had handed over the case to the CBI as ''the local police was pressurised not to pursue the case.'' They claimed that on finding the TDP leader ''guilty'', the CBI wrote to the Union Home Ministry seeking consent to prosecute him as required under section 7 of the Explosive Substances Act of 1908.

The Congress leaders demanded that the case must be reopened and the TDP leader prosecuted under section 304-A also, for causing the death of four persons.

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