Tension prevailed as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) activists on June 24 staged a dharna in front of the II-Town police station in Chittoor, seeking action against a police officer for allegedly prompting his driver to hit former Mayor Katari Hemalatha with the office vehicle during a protest on June 23 midnight.
Ms. Hemalatha, who sustained injuries on her leg, is undergoing treatment at the District Hospital.
The demonstration saw the TDP activists and the police personnel exchanging heated arguments and jostling with each other. Additional forces were deployed to diffuse the tension.
The protest on June 23 midnight came as a retort to the police search at the house of a TDP supporter on charges of storing ganja. Around 11 p.m. on June 23, a team led by II-Town police station Circle Inspector P. Yatheendra took a youth into custody, acting on a tip-off that he was making a deal with ganja smugglers. Later, the police reached Obanapalle locality to arrest another youth and reportedly seized some ganja from there.
Mr. Yatheendra said that knowing about the police raids, former Mayor and TDP leader K. Hemalatha, along with her supporters, rushed to Obanapalle and staged a protest there, demanding release of the two youth.
Former Mayor injured
“The protesters blocked our office vehicle, which helped the two youth to escape. When our driver tried to reverse the vehicle, the former Mayor and her followers tried to stop it. In the melee, she was said to have received a leg injury,” the Circle Inspector said.
He said the former Mayor and about a dozen of her supporters would be booked under Section 353 (using criminal force to deter public servant from discharging duty) of the IPC and for allowing the accused in ganja cases to escape.
Meanwhile, TDP leaders N. Amarnath Reddy and B.N. Rajasimhulu met Superintendent of Police Y. Rishant Reddy and submitted a memorandum. They sought action against the Circle Inspector, alleging that the party activists were being harassed with false cases.
The TDP leaders alleged that some YSRCP leaders, with the police support, were intimidating the witnesses in the murder case of former Mayor Katari Anuradha and her husband Katari Mohan (Ms. Hemalatha’s in-laws) reported in November 2015.
