BJP State president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Friday appeared before the 15-member Privileges Committee of Lok Sabha to explain how the police manhandled him while arresting him on the night of January 2 at his camp office in Karimnagar when he wanted to stage a sit in in protest against the arbitrary manner of reallotment and giving posting to teachers in new districts.
Sources here said he urged the panel, headed by Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh, to take action against Karimnagar Police Commissioner V. Satyanarayana and other police officials for the cruel manner in which he was picked up.
He also brought to the notice of the committee that the High Court had also found fault with the method adopted by police.
Explaining the sequence of events on that day, Mr. Sanjay Kumar said Mr. Satyanarayana tried to drag him by the collar of his shirt and using abusive language. He was herded into a waiting van and driven to Manakondur police station where he was detained for the whole night.
Mr. Sanjay Kumar said this was the second time Mr. Satyanarayana and police officials targeted him.
The police displayed the same cruelty against him when he was proceeding to the last rites of a road transport corporation worker Nagunuru Babu during the strike in the corporation in October 2019. This time round, he was demonstrating with COVID appropriate behaviour but the police resorted to strong arm tactics citing government restrictions on public gatherings due to the pandemic.
The BJP leader, apart from Mr. Satyanarayana, also named Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) of Huzurabad Kotla Venkat Reddy, police inspectors Kommineni Ramchander Rao (Jammikunta), V. Srinivas (Huzurabad), Challamalla Naresh (Karimnagar I Town) and ACP of Central Crime State at Karimnagar K. Srinivas.
He recalled his request to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for initiating against the officers as they had violated his privileges as a Member of Parliament.
He said a large police force led by Mr. Satyanarayana tried to storm his camp office forcibly by breaking the grills of the gate with gas cutters.
They had also brought an iron rod to break open the gate.
News reports next day and video clippings of the episode were submitted by Mr. Sanjay Kumar to the committee.
He explained to the committee the adverse impact of the reshuffle of employees at places of their work.
A government order issued for the purpose went against the spirit of Presidential Order on new zonal system for education and employment.
The process was taken up without transparency and there was no uniformity in it across districts.
