The Andhra Pradesh police is yet to arrest ruling Telugu Desam Party MLA and the party’s chief whip Chintamaneni Prabhakar for allegedly assaulting and verbally abusing police officials while they were on duty.
Speaking to The News Minute on Tuesday, the Circle Inspector of Bhimadole confirmed that while investigations were underway, the MLA is yet to be questioned. He also added that police is verifying the complaint.
The reported incident of assault occurred on Saturday when the 46-year-old MLA was irked at the police for diverting heavy vehicles to avoid congestion at Gundugolanu Junction in West Godavari district.
According to reports, a case was registered against Prabhakar in Denduluru police station under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 353 (attacking a public servant and deterring him from carrying out public duty) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code following a written complaint by ASI J Papa Rao.
In his complaint, Rao had alleged that apart from verbally abusing the policemen, the politician had also physically assaulted one of them.
Denduluru constituency MLA Prabhakar had announced that he would resign from his post after he was denied a position in the reshuffled state cabinet. However, the Speaker had dismissed his resignation.
In 2015, Prabhakar was involved in another controversy after he had assaulted a woman tehsildar in the state’s Krishna district but avoided prosecution purportedly due to his closeness to Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu.
A total of 20 legal cases against him were taken into cognisance according to the affidavit filed by him for the 2014 Assembly Elections.
