Like thousands of people trying to reach home amid severe travel restrictions, a young man named Srinivasa Rao set off on his two-wheeler from Tirupati to his hometown in Krishna district. Almost two-thirds down the nearly 450 km ride, the young man was found dead in Bapatla on Thursday morning. He allegedly took his own life after he was arrested by the police on Wednesday for violating lockdown restrictions.
Reports say Srinivasa Rao recorded a video before taking his life, where he named the policemen who arrested him as the reason for his death. In the video, he says, “They arrested me at noon, but haven’t done anything for me till now. They filed a case and just left me like this atrociously, the Vedurumalli (sic) police officers. The Vedurumalli police are responsible for my death. Without any responsibility, they have left me here at Bapatla,” he says in the video.
Vedullapalli (which Srinivasa Rao calls Vedurumalli) is a village in the Bapatla mandal of Guntur district.
According to The New Indian Express, 22-year-old Srinivasa Rao had been working at a textile factory at Nagari, near Tirupati. He was travelling to his hometown of Putlacheruvu village in Mandavalli mandal of Krishna district.
At the Vedullapalli checkpost in Guntur district, Srinivasa Rao was arrested by the local police on Wednesday. Vedullapalli Sub-Inspector Rajasekar told TNM, “We filed a case for violating lockdown rules, and seized his vehicle. He had lunch at the station, and slept for a while. He was given station bail later, and we asked him to get on a lorry going in the direction of his hometown. Our ASI (Assistant Sub-Inspector) took him to the checkpost and told him to get on the lorry. We told him his vehicle would be sent by road once the lockdown is over.”
Rajasekar said Srinivasa Rao seems to have gotten down from the lorry around 12-15 kms away from the checkpost, in Bapatla. He was found dead on Thursday morning near the RTC bus depot in the town.
"The lorry driver called us at night saying he was dropping Srinivasa Rao off at Bapatla. He had asked the driver to close the window glass as he was feeling cold. The driver was afraid that this might mean he has COVID-19, and called us to say he had dropped him off as he was worried for himself and his family. We were unable to reach the Bapatla patrolling teams at that time. We spoke to him on the phone and assured him that we would arrange something in some time, and asked him to sleep in Bapatla itself until something was arranged. When we tried his phone a couple of hours later, we could not reach him. The staff was on checkpost duty and assumed that he might have fallen asleep somewhere. In the morning, his body was found," Rajasekar said.
When asked why Srinivasa Rao was not sent to a quarantine facility, as has been done with several Andhra residents turned away from crossing state or district borders, Rajasekar said, “He seemed healthy, and he kept requesting, saying his parents were waiting for him. From a humanitarian perspective, we let him go home.”
Speaking to a Telugu media outlet, Balaji, an acquaintance of Srinivasa Rao, who was one of the people who received the video, said that after the arrest, Srinivasa Rao did not talk to his friends. “He wanted to come home on his two-wheeler. The Prakasam border police tried to stop him, but he escaped and came ahead. The police in Bapatla caught him on Wednesday around 12 pm. On Thursday morning, we saw the video on a group and called Bapatla police, who told us he had taken his life. Police are citing various reasons. They said that he started showing symptoms of being infected with coronavirus so he was kept near the bus stop. They even said that it might have been because of financial difficulties,” Balaji said.
A case of suicide has been registered in Bapatla Town Police Station, and investigation is ongoing. The New Indian Express reported that Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Gautam Sawang has asked Guntur Range Inspector General of Police (IG) J Prabhakar to investigate the matter and submit a report.