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Senior IPS officer PV Sunil Kumar has accused Andhra Pradesh Assembly Deputy Speaker K Raghu Rama Krishna Raju of attempting to influence witnesses in a custodial torture case where he is the victim, and ongoing CBI investigations in which he is an accused.
The allegations were made in the wake of the arrest of Bihar cadre IPS officer Sunil Naik, who is an accused in the torture case. Sunil Naik was on deputation to Andhra Pradesh and was serving as the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) in 2021, when Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, who was then an MP, was arrested. He later alleged that he underwent custodial torture. PV Sunil Kumar was the CID chief at the time.
Raju had won the 2019 parliamentary election from Guntur on a YSRCP ticket but had turned a rebel against the party. He was known for his anti-YSRCP stance and had been openly critical of party chief and then Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. He was arrested on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy for his remarks against the state government. He had alleged at the time that the police tortured him in custody, sharing pictures of his bruised feet.
Raju joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) before the 2024 elections and won the Assembly election from Undi constituency. He was then appointed Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.
A month after the TDP came to power, the police registered a case against Jagan, PV Sunil Kumar, and others, based on Raju’s complaint that there was an attempt to kill him in the police custody.
Raju is accused in multiple bank fraud cases by the CBI. As former director of the company Ind-Barath Power (Madras) Limited, Raju is accused of defrauding banks to the tune of Rs 237.84 crore in one case. In another case, he is accused of causing a loss of nearly Rs 826.17 crore to Punjab National Bank and other consortium banks by defaulting on loans.
PV Sunil Kumar, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste and is currently under suspension, also alleged that himself and Naik, an officer from a Scheduled Tribe, were being treated differently from officers from dominant castes.
Sunil Naik was arrested by a police team from Andhra Pradesh in Patna on February 23. However, the Patna Civil Court refused to grant transit remand, stalling his transfer to Andhra Pradesh. The previous day, the Andhra government extended the ongoing suspension of PV Sunil Kumar, till his retirement or the termination of criminal charges against him.
On February 26, PV Sunil Kumar shared a post from Sunil Naik’s private X account, In the post, Naik insinuated that Raju had threatened that he would be implicated in the custodial torture case if he refused to testify against Jagan and PV Sunil Kumar.
Naik’s post said that RRR (Raju)’s call records would show that he had influenced witnesses and deliberately implicated people in the case.
Sharing this post, Sunil Kumar alleged that there was also a chance of Raju influencing witnesses in fraud cases against him being probed by the CBI. He called on the CBI to verify if this was the case, and called on people to share tips with the agency.
He also shared another post from Naik in which he asked if he was being targeted because of his caste.
Sunil Kumar was suspended in 2025 on the grounds that he went on multiple foreign trips without proper authorisation. However, Sunil Kumar had stated that he had taken leave and permissions before traveling abroad, but only made some changes in the schedule at the last minute. He alleged that there were officers from dominant castes who went on foreign trips without prior permission and only informed authorities after returning, but did not face any consequence.
“We can see how social justice is being applied,” PV Sunil Kumar told the media after Naik’s arrest. He said that despite Sunil Naik being a senior officer from an ST community, the Andhra Pradesh police jumped the walls of his house to arrest him, and treated his mother poorly.
Sunil Kumar, who runs an organisation called Ambedkar's India Mission, also said that he will continue to work with Scheduled Caste groups in the state.