A Hyderabad court on Tuesday sent Congress leader T. Jaya Prakash Reddy to judicial custody for 14 days in a human trafficking case.

The police produced the former legislator before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, who remanded him to judicial custody.

The Congress leader was later shifted to Chanchalguda Central Prison in the city.

Jaya Prakash Reddy alias Jagga Reddy was arrested on Monday after a suo motu case was filed against him at Market Police Station in Secunderabad.

According to the police, he allegedly obtained Indian passports and US visas by submitting fake documents in the name of his family members.

Jagga Reddy, a former MLA from Sangareddy constituency, allegedly obtained passports in 2004 for himself and for his wife, daughter and son by affixing the photos of others. He also allegedly obtained US visas for them and illegally transported them by accompanying them to the US as his family members.

Police are trying to verify the identity of those who had travelled with Reddy and stayed back in America, while Reddy returned to Hyderabad. 

Police have booked a case against Reddy under charges of impersonation, forgery, cheating, human trafficking and the Passport Act.

Meanwhile, President of Telangana unit of Congress party Uttam Kumar Reddy has alleged that Jagga Reddy's arrest in the 14-year-old human trafficking case was illegal and aimed at terrorising opposition parties just before elections.

He claimed that the main accused in the case, Rasheed Ali, in his confessional statement had named Chief Minister K. Chandrshekhar Rao, Harish Rao and other TRS leaders.

Jagga Reddy was instrumental in arranging Rahul Gandhi's mega rally at Sangareddy in 2017. In the run-up to the Telangana state elections, he was tasked with setting up meetings between the minority community in the state and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on September 12, which has since been postponed.  

IANS inputs