Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy accused the police of provoking the Congress cadre to create violence on the direction of the state government to impress Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking to reporters at Bolarum police station where he was taken after his arrest, he termed the police ‘highhandedness’ as the reason for injuries to Congress workers and leaders, and demanded the Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekhar Rao to order an inquiry immediately into the role of some police officers.
“We have been protesting for the last four days peacefully. But the sudden eruption of violence today was pre-planned and seems to be the handiwork of some police officers to defame and demoralise the Congress workers realising that these protests would continue”, he claimed.
Mr. Reddy alleged that some police officers were blindly toeing the line of the government and accused them of serving biryani to the rapists while attacking the Congress leaders protesting peacefully. How can the police justify four policemen brutally lathicharging a single person, he asked referring to the video of attack on Chamala Kiran Reddy.
He said Prime Minister Modi was trying to intimidate the regional parties by harassing Rahul Gandhi through ED and the police action on Congress cadre reflects that the Chief Minister, KCR too was intimidated and fell into that trap. Such brutality of police was never seen even during the Telangana agitation, he alleged.
Mr. Revanth Reddy demanded the unconditional withdrawal of the police cases foisted against the Congress leaders and the cadre today, and assured that all these cases would be withdrawn once the party comes to power after 11 months.
The Congress chief called upon the cadre to burn the effigies of both the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Chief Minister, KCR on Friday. The party had earlier called for protests in front of all the central government offices including railway stations, post offices and income tax offices.
