Hyderabad: The Hayathnagar police booked Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Telangana unit president Bandi Sanjay and arrested party leader Jitta Balakrishna Reddy on charges of levelling false accusations against Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and defaming government schemes.
Balakrishna Reddy was arrested at a toll gate in Ghatkesar on Friday. Police seized a mask with the likeness of the Chief Minister along with a liquor bottle and a flexiboard of Telangana Formation Day from Reddy.
Police said that on June 6, the TS BJP organised an event to mark Telangana Formation Day but “misused” the dais and “played a hateful skit“ with the help of BJP cultural team led by Boddu Yellanna alias Daruvu Yellanna.
Police said Y. Sathish Reddy, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) social media convener, lodged a complaint alleging that the BJP had misused the platform to defame the government schemes with false accusations on the Chief Minister.
Based on this claim, a case was registered against Sanjay, Balakrishna Reddy, Yelanna and BJP leader Rani Rudrama.
“On examination of the video, it is evident that the organisers have misused the dais... to make derogatory comments, personal attacks, depicting the Chief Minister of a state as a boozer, cheater etc., to lower the image of a person elected by democratic means and holding a constitutional post, thereby they have indulged in personal attack and hate speech by way of playing a skit and caused distress among public,” the police said.
“The skit was videographed and telecast by V6, a Telugu news channel, and generated views to their story and caused distress among certain groups by disseminating/telecasting the hate speech to provoke hatred among the groups on the basis of their association which may cause threat to the democratic order,” added the police.
Such an act had gone against the democratic ethos and hurt the public will, police said.
