Telangana Police detain admin of Facebook page for criticizing TRS government

An admin of a popular Facebook page, Spirit of Telangana was arrested for his alleged posts involving derogatory comments and criticising the ruling TRS government in the state.

The Hyderabad Commissioner's Task Force on Monday picked up the admin, identified as Prashant, from his office in Banjara Hills and detained for questioning.

According to the reports, Prashant had put up a few posts attacking Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his Cabinet Ministers. The Facebook page called ‘Spirit of Telangana’ has six admins, including four NRIs.

Following Prashant getting detained, the page gathered support demanding his release with several users using the hashtag #releaseprashant

The page also shared screenshots of CCTV footage of the policemen who had picked up Prashant were in civil dress and not in their uniform.

A post on the FB page read, "Prashant hails from a poor family and he is using words as his weapon. Staying in a simple room without taking salary, he is exposing the losses that are happening due to the present government. He must be released immediately.”

In a video appeal, another admin of the group said, "Spirit of Telangana was established for the people and runs because of the people. Around three days ago, we had exposed some irregularities by a TRS Minister in Suryapet district. We suspect that he was detained due to that. Our only intention is to expose the government's mistakes. Such acts will not deter us and we are ready to fight and face all consequences.”

The move was condemned by several Congress leaders including Dr Sravan Dasoju and Revanth Reddy.

Prashant was later let off after the cyber crime police scanned his mobile.