Two days after Congress MLA A. Revanth Reddy’s associate R.S. Uday Simha charged that ‘fake Income Tax officials’ raided the house of his friend M. Ranadeep Reddy, the Rachakonda police on Tuesday said that they detained him as he was found moving in suspicious circumstances.
The Uppal police said that they found a person — who was later identified as Ranadeep — waiting near Little Flower Junior College on Monday afternoon. He was carrying a bag then. Ä team of Uppal police checking vehicles subjected him to frisking. “We found some gold jewellery, ₹1.94 lakh, a computer hard disc and bank covers inside. He couldn’t explain whose bag (and articles) it was ,” Uppal Inspector P. Venkateshwarlu said.
Ranadeep from Wadicherla of Jangaon district was a financial consultant with a private firm. He was taken to Uppal police station for questioning and was let off the same evening, the Inspector claimed. The consultant was asked to come back with details of the material seized.
Different version
But the consultant had a completely different tale to tell.
He maintained that around 9.30 p.m. on Sunday, a group of 10 men posing as Income Tax officials barged into his house as he was having dinner with his family. “After questioning me in a separate room, they seized gold jewellery, cash, and a computer hard disk and took me to the Task Force office in Secunderabad,” he said on Tuesday. He maintained that he was grilled for several hours and eventually realised that they were not IT officials but policemen. Before beginning interrogation, the policemen reportedly collected his mobile phone. According to him, the TF police handed him over to Uppal police late on Monday night.
“As there was no communication from my end for so long, my family members got worried and approached the L.B. Nagar police to lodge a complaint about my disappearance on Monday morning,” he said. But the L.B. Nagar Inspector V. Ashok Reddy was not ready to receive their complaint, he charged.
Charge against police
They again went to him in the afternoon but the Inspector allegedly declined to take the complaint stating how can he trust their version. Ranadeep Reddy’s relative Diwakar Reddy maintained that the Inspector even said that the printer in the police station was not working and the Internet service was down and hence the complaint could not be taken immediately. Challenging the claims of Uppal police that Ranadeep was detained while he was moving suspiciously, Uday Simha urged the police to release video footage of the detention.
