National Students’ Union of India Telangana president Balmuri Venkata Narsinga Rao was on Thursday arrested for stealing a donkey, under provisions of the Information Technology Act, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the IPC.
Mr. Balmuri and others were booked by Jammikunta police and Kothapalli police in Karimnagar district following petitions by activists and leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samithi. He was taken into custody at around 11.45 p.m. when he was returning to Jammikunta.
According to a petition by one T. Rajkumar, the party’s president of Jammikunta town, the NSUI leader along with his followers stole a donkey and hung a poster of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to it on Thursday.
By involving the animal in the cake-cutting, force-feeding it and circulating the visuals on social media, they have not only subjected the donkey to cruelty but have also ridiculed KCR’s birthday celebrations and sentiments of leaders, the petition read.
Another petition also said the visuals from the event would disturb peace and provoke a riot.
Karimnagar DCP (L&O) S. Srinivas addressed media persons on Friday and said the late night arrest of the leader was based on instructions from police commissioner V. Satyanarayana. He said Mr. Balmuri was booked for theft, deliberate provocation to cause a riot, unlawful assembly, intentional insult, publishing obscene material in electronic form, and cruelty to animal.
Mr. Balmuri was later released on a bail.
Meanwhile, State Congress leaders Manickam Tagore and A. Revanth Reddy on Friday described Mr. Balmuri’s arrest illegal.
“The donkey is in front of the eyes, charges of theft are wrong. Why get angry when asked about unemployment?” Mr. Reddy posted on Twitter.
