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Soon after a court in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district on Thursday, April 30, granted bail to YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) General Secretary (Media), Pudi Srihari, he was picked up again by Guntur police in a different case over the same social media post.
Srihari was arrested on Wednesday for an allegedly abusive social media post targeting Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. The FIR was registered by the police on April 13 following a complaint by a person identified as Vinod Kumar Murthy. It concerned a post on the YSRCP social media account which featured an edited image of Naidu wielding a sword with blood splattered on his clothes, alleging that he had a role in the murders of many of his political rivals.
Police arrested Srihari for a second time in the case, from Bengaluru, early on Wednesday morning. He was brought to Kuppam, where he was produced before the Additional Junior Civil Judge Court. After hearing arguments from both sides, the court granted bail to Srihari.
However, he was picked up by the Kothapet police from Guntur over a different case. This FIR too was registered over the same social media post on April 13, based on a complaint by Guntur East MLA from TDP Mohammed Naseer.
Srihari was arrested from Bengaluru a day after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order, suspending the remand rejection order of the trial court, in the Kuppam case.
Srihari, who served as Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) to then Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, had approached the Supreme Court, apprehending arrest after the High Court suspended the remand rejection order given by the trial court in Kuppam. Srihari was produced before the trial court on April 16. He was released after the court rejected the petition by the police to send him to judicial remand.
Later, the High Court suspended the order of the trial court. Srihari has already denied creating, posting or forwarding the content in question. He said he had worked as a senior journalist for over 25 years and had always functioned within the limits of the law.
He maintained that even as a political leader, he continued to follow the ethics of journalism and respected the law.
With IANS inputs