The Congress on Saturday strongly condemned the Telangana police for registering cases against Youth Congress activists for a post on social media related to missing cases that were reported in the state.
Stating that the case against the Congress activists was false, fabricated and politically motivated, All India Congress Committee (AICC) National Spokesperson Dr Sravan Dasoju demanded the police immediately withdraw all cases against Telangana Youth Congress General Secretary Venkat Gurijala and two other party workers, Kranthi Kiran Naidu and Balraju.
Sravan was speaking to reporters at Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of the party's state unit in Hyderabad.
Last week, the police had registered a suo motu case based on viral posts on social media, which claimed that the number of missing complaints in Hyderabad has been increasing day by day and "nearly 82 people went missing in Telangana within just 24 hours on Saturday (June 8)". The police said these posts were creating alarm in the public and it was likely to induce the general public to commit an offence against public peace.
"If reporting the missing cases and questioning the government is a crime, then why a similar case was not booked against the newspaper that originally published the report?" Sravan asked.
"The false case and subsequent media reports led to the character assassination of Venkat Gurijala and two others and their further career has been sabotaged," he added.
Ahead of the press meet, Sravan, along with TPPC Working President Ponnam Prabhakar and Youth Congress President Anil Kumar Yadav, submitted a memorandum to Director General of Police Mahender Reddy demanding the withdrawal of cases registered against the Congress activists.
The fake messages on social media were triggered by reports in a section of vernacular media that said 540 missing cases were registered in Telangana in the first 10 days of June.
The top brass of the police claimed that the data with regard to missing persons was twisted to give a sinister interpretation. Officials said there was nothing to panic as the figures were not unusual and that 222 of these cases were already solved.
A fact check done by TNM also showed that the number 546 isn’t unusually high.