Amid high tension, BJP State president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay was arrested by the police on Wednesday in connection with the case relating to circulation of the SSC Hindi exam question paper on WhatsApp, registered at Kamalapur police station in Hanamkonda district on Tuesday.
The Kamalapur police named Mr. Sanjay as the first accused in the FIR and arrested him on charges of criminal conspiracy, malpractices in SSC public exams with an intention to spread rumours, disrupt the peaceful conduct of the ongoing SSC exams and defame the duly elected State government.
B. Prashanth, 33, a former reporter of a Telugu television news channel; G Mahesh, 37, a lab assistant; M Shiva Ganesh, 19; and a minor boy are among the total 10 accused named in the FIR.
Acting on a complaint filed by M. Shiva Prasad, Headmaster of ZPHS (Boys), Kamalapur, the police on Tuesday registered a case under IPC Sections 120 (B), 420, 447 and 505 (1) (b), and also Section 4(a), 6r/w 8 of T.S. Public Examination (Prevention of malpractices) Act, 1997, Section 66-D of IT Act.
The Kamalapur police have arrested four accused including the minor boy on Tuesday evening. Based on their confession and data evaluation of the phone calls and WhatsAPP chats, the first accused was arrested at Pembarthi arch on the Hanamkonda-Hyderabad stretch of the NH-163 at 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday, the police said in the remand case diary.
Mr. Sanjay was taken into preventive custody by the Karimnagar Two Town police from his house in Karimnagar in crime number 147/2023 under Section 151 of Cr.P.C. in the wee hours of Wednesday. Amid high drama, Mr Sanjay was picked up from his house after Tuesday midnight and shifted to Bommalaramaram police station in Yadadri Bhongir district. His arrest sparked widespread protests from the BJP cadres at Gajularamaram and various other parts of the State.
The BJP workers took to the streets in several parts of Karimnagar, Jagtial, Hanamkonda, Khammam, and Bhadradri Kothagudem districts condemning the arrest and terming it as an “act of political vendetta.”
Several BJP leaders including Dubbak MLA M. Raghunandan Rao were dispersed during the protest outside the Bommalaramaram police station on Wednesday morning.
In the remand case diary, the police charged the second and third accused Prashanth and Mahesh with sending the minor boy to the examination centre in Kamalapur at the behest of the first accused. The minor boy trespassed into the exam centre, scaled the compound wall and clicked an image of the Hindi question paper from one student in one of the rooms in the first floor at 9.45 a.m., the police said, alleging that the picture of the question paper was then forwarded to SSC 2019-2020 WhatsApp groups and subsequently circulated on other groups.
The police further charged the second accused with posting it as a “breaking news” on various social media platforms and forwarding it to Mr Sanjay and also to the PA of Huzurabad MLA E Rajender at around 11.24 a.m.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sanjay was produced before the judge of a local court at his residence in Hanamkonda on Wednesday evening. The Judge remanded him in judicial custody till April 19.
