Tension prevailed in Hyderabad city on Thursday following challenges and counter challenges between BRS MLA Kaushik Reddy and MLA defected from BRS Arekapudi Gandhi. Emotions rose after Gandhi went to the house of Koushik Reddy and challenged him to come out, besides his followers entered into Reddy’s house and resorted to rampage.
This led to the arrest of Gandhi, while Kaushik Reddy alleged that they made an attempt on his life. However, BRS leaders became angry when soon after Gandhi was released by the police, without registering a case against him.
Demanding to book him under `attempt to murder’ charges, senior BRS leaders, including former minister T Harish Rao, Sabitha Indra Reddy, Prasanth Reddy and others went to Cyberabad Police Commissioner’s office and sat on dharna.
They strongly condemned the `biased approach’ of the police, which was allegedly visible when they placed Kaushik Reddy under house arrest to prevent him from reaching Serilingampally MLA Arekapudi Gandhi’s residence, but allowed Gandhi and his followers to reach Kaushik Reddy’s house.
They lamented that the police stood mute spectators to the attack launched by the Congress workers on Kaushik Reddy’s residence. They did not prevent Gandhi’s supporters from scaling the main entrance of the gated villa community where the BRS legislator lived, and again stood watching as Congress workers went on a rampage, attacking Kaushik Reddy’s supporters and pelting stones, eggs, and tomatoes at his residence.
Learning about the attack, senior BRS leaders, including Harish Rao, P Sabitha Indra Reddy and Prashanth Reddy rushed to Kaushik Reddy’s residence. Later, they headed to the Cyberabad Police Commissioner’s office, demanding action against the police officials who failed to prevent the attack and also called for the arrest of Gandhi and his supporters.
When they tried to meet Commissioner Avinash Mohanty, the security personnel stopped them. Angered by this, the leaders staged a protest demanding stringent action against the local ACP and Inspector who failed to protect Kaushik Reddy from being attacked. They were then allowed to submit a representation to Joint Commissioner (Traffic) Joel Davis. Not satisfied with this, the BRS leaders then staged a protest at the Commissionerate raising slogans.