Hyderabad: Arrests stymie Congress protest plans

Hyderabad: While the Congress was getting ready to take up Godavari Jala Deeksha on Saturday, it is now facing one more round of arrests by the police.

With several agitation programmes of the Congress being prevented by the police either through arrests or house arrest, the party leaders have been angry with the police and protesting the arrests. PCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy has submitted a memorandum to the Director General of Police on Friday resenting the arrests.

In the letter he said that he was surprised about the partisan and politically biased behavior of some officers of Telangana police towards leaders and cadres of Congress party. He alleged that few police officers were suppressing democratic rights of the four crore Telangana people. He also said that Covid-19 restrictions are being used to help false propaganda of the TRS among the people and to suppress the voice of Congress.

Uttam pointed out that the Chief Minister along with others has been participating in programmes with large gatherings with no social distancing and no masks, inauguration of Konda Pochamma project being one of them. MAUD minister KT Rama Rao's participation in a programme at Sircilla constituency, Finance minister Harish Rao's participation in a programme at Ranga Nayak Sagar and several other ministers have violated the restrictions of Covid-19 being imposed by the Centre, he alleged.

Pointing at the bias by officials, he said that while police have been citing the notification of the Centre on restrictions in view of Covid-19, the same was not applied to the programmes of ruling TRS party.

He demanded that the police should inform the Congress leaders in writing about the provisions being invoked against them if they restrict their movement.