Giving a blow-by-blow account of what happened near Annaram village last evening, she said that the former Speaker, along with 25-30 followers, mostly public representatives, had gone to the village to attend a ceremony at the residence of Congress leader P. Mohan Reddy. On their way back, they were waylaid by around 30 Naxalites dressed in olive green uniforms, who took them to a nearby dried-up creek.

Speaking to The Indian Express at the NTPC hospital mortuary here, Sattemma said that the extremists discussed various issues ranging from World Bank loans to teachers' transfers. ``Three of them spoke for a while in private and after returning,asked all of us to leave the place. When we refused to leave Sripada Rao behind, they threatened to shoot us,'' said Ch Narayana Reddy, a local Congress leader.

Satyanarayana Raju, another local leader, was beaten up when he refused to leave. However, Sattemma and two other women kept pleading with the extremists not to harm Rao.

``We started leaving after they repeatedly threatened us. We had hardly covered 50 yards when we heard gunshots,'' she said, adding that she ran back to the place only to be told that they had killed Rao.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today said his government would take stringent steps against Naxalites of the outlawed PWG in the killing of Sripada Rao.

Naidu, who was here to pay homage to the slain leader, said: ``The people never believed in PWG ideology or the violence perpetrated by it. The brutal killing of Rao was an act to terrorise them.''

Describing the killing of Rao as ``barbaric'', he said the problems of the people would not besolved by such killings and reiterated his appeal to the Naxalites to join the mainstream. According to police sources, a `military platoon' and Mahadevpur and Manthani squads of the outlawed Peoples War Group (PWG) were involved in the killing.

In fact, a training camp was reportedly held in the thick forests abutting Annaram village for over a week under the supervision of ``platoon commander'' Chandranna. About 150 extremists are believed to have attended the training camp.

``He might have walked into the well-laid trap of the PWG. Though he was not supposed to visit the village on that day, the former Speaker ultimately went on the persuasion of local party leaders,'' police sources added.

In a note they left behind, the PWG Naxalites held him responsible for 14 encounters which occurred in Manthani constituency during the 1994 Assembly elections. The letter, scribbled on a piece of paper and signed by ``central guerilla squad'' secretary Tirupati, said that the killing was in retaliation to theencounters by Punjab commandos (who were deployed in Karimnagar district during the elections).

Since February, Sripada Rao was touring the constituency extensively without any security, apparently because he perceived no threat from the Naxalites. After his killing, almost all political leaders in the district have begun feeling insecure and it will take a long time for them to recover from the trauma, a senior politician of the district observed.