SP suspends 4 police officers for graft

Tirupati: District SP P Parameswar Reddy suspended four police officials of the Tiruchanur police station, a CI and three SIs, for indulging in corruption and also for encouraging unlawful activities in nexus with anti-social elements.

According to details that came to light on Wednesday, Nitish of Hyderabad owned a two-storey building under Srinivasapuram panchayat in Tirupati rural mandal and leased it out to one Muthu Kumar of Chennai. Muthu Kumar again sub let it to ITC company as a godown. When Nitish wanted to sell his property, Muthu Kumar refused to vacate and behaved in a rude manner, even claiming that the building belonged to him.

Nitish then approached a real estate broker Manikanta of Bairgaiptteda asking him sell the building to somebody and offered him huge amount as commission.

Manikanta sold out the building to a doctor but Muthu Kumar still did not vacate the property.

As pressured mounted from the doctor for handover of the building, Manikanta along with his friends Irfan and Srinivas, decided to drive out Muthu Kumar forcibly. Accordingly, he hired some goons and entered into the godown. The musclemen, including Manikanta, threw out the material stored inside the building belonging to ITC company, including biscuits, chocolates, cigarette packets worth Rs 20 lakh.

With the help of Tiruchanur SI Veeresh, Manikanta and others sold away the cigarette packets at shops known to them at lesser prices. Based on the complaint by ITC officials, district SP Parameswar Reddy handed over the investigation to Puttur DSP T D Yaswanth.

During the probe, all the facts including Manikanta bribing police for cooperation during attack on the ITC godown, sharing of amount accrued from disposing of goods there of among CI M Subramanyam, SIs Veeresh, B Ramakrishna Reddy and M Ramakrishna came to light.

On the basis of investigation report, the SP with the approval of Anantapur range DIG Ravi Prakash suspended the four police officers on Wednesday.