JC Prabhakar under house arrest after threatening to burn sand smuggling vehicles

Tadipatri(Anantapur district): Tadipatri remained tense with the police placing municipal chairman JC Prabhakar Reddy under house arrest for threatening to set ablaze sand vehicles of illegal miners if the authorities fail to take action on the sand smugglers. As a preventive measure, he had been kept under house arrest since Monday. A ruckus had been going on between Tadipatri municipal chairman Prabhakar Reddy and the YSRCP on the allegedly unabated illegal sand mining on the banks of Penna river for quite some time but the tussle remained unattended. So, Prabhakar Reddy approached the High Court. He told reporters that the permission for sand mining was for 2,000 tonne but the YSRCP 'goons' mined more than 5,000 tonne. He demanded that the authorities penalise the miners and extract the full cost of illegally mined sand. The High Court, he said, had given directions to authorities concerned to check illegal sand mining.

Meanwhile, the police clarified that the High Court did give directions to the authorities to act on illegal miners but had not authorised Prabhar Reddy to take law into his hands and create social arrest.

In the context, ex-MP Diwakar Reddy too submitted a memorandum to collector M Gauthami to act on illegal miners.

Anantapur: Ex-MP J.C.Diwakar Reddy and ex-minister Palle Raghunath Reddy met district collector M.Gauthami at the collectorate and extended greetings to her. In his complaint to the collector, Diwakar Reddy said that despite the High Court ban, YSRCP leaders were looting sand from the Penna river. Sand mining, he alleged, is going on a massive scale and the public wealth is being looted left, right and the centre.

He also met SP Srinivasa Rao and drew his attention to the illegal sand mining going on unabated despite the High Court ban order.