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Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao criticised the Congress government in Telangana for registering an FIR against several leaders of his party including himself, on various charges including outraging the modesty of a woman police officer. The FIR was registered over the scuffle near the Assembly on September 7, the first day of the ongoing monsoon session, when police personnel stopped BRS legislators from entering the House for wearing black T-shirts with anti-Congress slogans.
The FIR was based on a complaint from a detective inspector who was on security duty at the Assembly’s gate number 3. It names BRS MLAs KTR, T Harish Rao, D Sudheer Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar, Padi Kaushik Reddy, G Jagadish Reddy, Sunitha Laxma Reddy, Kova Laxmi, Sabitha Indra Reddy, Sanjay, and Vijayudu, MLCs Shambhipur Raju, Tata Madhu, Naveen Kumar Reddy, and “several other BRS leaders and their associates.”
The FIR mentions the following charges – voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt to a public servant to stop them from doing their job; assault or use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their lawful duty; assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty; word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman; criminal intimidation, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and making statements conducing to public mischief.
Incidentally, the women BRS MLAs named in the FIR themselves have accused police personnel of manhandling them during the scuffle. Sabitha Indra Reddy alleged that police personnel pulled her hair, and Sunitha Laxma Reddy alleged that they pulled at her saree.
As police personnel tried to forcefully stop the BRS leaders from entering the Assembly and Council, many of them questioned the police, asking who gave the orders to manhandle them. Two BRS MLCs were booked under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 for questioning if the Assembly Speaker had asked the police to do so.
The FIR against KTR and other BRS legislators mentioned that the police were asked to stop the BRS leaders for wearing black T-shirts with political slogans “contrary to the prescribed norms”, by the Speaker’s office through the Chief Marshal of the Assembly.
The FIR alleges that Harish Rao asked if the Congress was using women constables for political reasons and warned to act against the security staff, while KTR also allegedly passed objectionable comments about the women police personnel.
“The tenor, context and manner in which the above remarks were made were not only insulting and intimidating to the women police personnel and other public servants who were merely discharging the security duties assigned to them but also embarrassing,” the FIR said.
It then said that the BRS leaders asked that the three women MLAs – Kova Laxmi, Sunitha Laxma Reddy and Sabitha Indra Reddy – be allowed to enter as they weren’t wearing the T-shirts with slogans. But when the gates were opened to allow them in, D Sudheer Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar, Padi Kaushik Reddy, Harish Rao and others tried to force their way in, the complaint said. When the police personnel tried to stop them, some of these BRS leaders used physical force and pushed the police staff, it alleged.
BRS members were “shouting, abusing and manhandling the police personnel who were performing their lawful public duties,” it said.
It also alleged that KTR held a member of the police personnel by the collar, and pushed and assaulted another. Harish Rao and others removed their T-shirts and asked to be allowed in, “without caring for the presence of women police personnel deployed at the gate,” the complaint said. It added that the accused persons “pushed and manhandled the police personnel” and “pushed/fell upon the women police personnel, thereby subjecting the women personnel on duty to humiliating and embarrassing physical circumstances while they were performing their official duties.”
KTR criticised the FIR while referring to Chief Minister Revanth Reddy as “cheap minister”. He said the party would fight the case in court. He went on to question the Congress government about the allegations of exploitation by Milla Magee, a Miss World contestant from England who left the competition held in Hyderabad. She had alleged that she felt exploited after being asked to entertain middle-aged male guests and being disrespected by pageant officials.
