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Telangana police forcefully entered the house of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) social media convener Krishank Manne on the morning of September 18 to take him into custody over a social media post. Visuals showed several police personnel at Krishank’s residence, breaking open the lock on an outer grilled gate and insisting that he open the door.
The Bollarum police picked up Krishank reportedly over a social media post in which he questioned the recent alleged attack by a group of masked men on BRS working president KT Rama Rao’s aides inside the Saifabad police station.
On September 14, KTR’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Manikya Mahesh and personal assistant Mahender Reddy alleged that they were attacked by a group of masked men at the Saifabad police station when they were called for questioning in a case against them. They had been booked for allegedly abusing police officers on duty at the Telangana Assembly while the BRS was carrying out a protest against the Congress-led government.
On the night of September 17, Mahesh was at the Saifabad police station again for questioning in the same case when he was taken to the Bollarum police station in connection with a separate case alleging obstruction of police duties. He was released only on the morning of September 18 after police served him a notice under Section 35(3) of the BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita).
In a video recorded before he was taken into custody, Krishank said he had been at the Bollarum police station until around 4 am, waiting for Mahesh to be released. Soon after returning home, around 5 am, he said nearly 50 police personnel arrived, knocked on the grills of his gate and tried to enter his house.
Krishank said he had posted about the alleged incident at the Saifabad police station, where 25-30 masked men allegedly attacked KTR’s aides. He also noted that the matter is before the court and that the Telangana High Court had directed police to preserve CCTV footage from the station. The government has disputed the allegations in court.
Krishank questioned whether the police action was politically motivated over his allegations of corruption in land allotments to a company run by Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s brother, Kondal Reddy.
Krishank has alleged that Tesseract Advanced Systems, an aerospace component manufacturing company of which Kondal Reddy is the chairman, was granted five acres of land in Raviryal village of Rangareddy district by the state government for Rs 7 crore. He claimed the land’s actual valuation was around Rs 200 crore.
KTR also questioned Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the police action against the Opposition in Telangana, saying the Revanth Reddy government was acting in contradiction to the politics of ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukaan’ (a store of love).
Tensions between the Congress and BRS have escalated since the ongoing monsoon session of the Assembly began. BRS legislators wearing black T-shirts with anti-Congress slogans were denied entry to the Assembly, leading to a scuffle. BRS leaders alleged that police personnel, including women officers, manhandled them, while the Congress alleged that BRS legislators had manhandled and abused police personnel.
On September 16, Revanth Reddy hit back at BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao and his family members, alleging that they owned land exceeding the legal ceiling. He alleged that KCR’s farmhouse in Erravelli was spread over more than 700 acres, including 388 acres of government land meant to be assigned to Dalit families. Revanth said the government would inquire into the alleged irregularities and planned to distribute the land among 800 Dalit families.
