With no violence reported during the nine-hour curfew relaxation period from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, Superintendent of Police Karthikeya has relaxed the curfew hours further from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. However, prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC will continue during the period. Police pickets at vantage points, particularly near the properties of Minister Botcha Satyanarayana, continued.
Curfew was clamped on the town from the night of October 5 and it is being relaxed gradually in phases. Though shops and establishments functioned normally and people came out in droves, people felt insecure due to the presence of the police forces at every crossroad.
Meanwhile, TDP general secretary I.V.P. Raju in a memorandum submitted to the Collector and the Superintendent of Police alleged that the police had been arresting youths named by the ruling party leaders and registering cases against them for the past four days.
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The police, however, maintained that the arrests were being made based on video and newspaper clippings.
TDP memo
In fact, the police ignored TDP’s memo enclosing newspaper clippings submitted to the SP on October 5. Mr. Raju said that the manner in which the police were taking youths into custody was violation of human rights and appealed to the SP to act tough against the anti-social elements, notwithstanding party affiliations, impartially.
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Yuva Satta district president P. Venkataramana in a separate statement alleged that majority of youths arrested were Dalits inhabiting Jonnaguddi, Bungaveedhi, Lankapatnam, B.C. Colony, and other colonies in the town.
Opposing their arrests, he said that the police turned a blind eye towards those distributed money and liquor and maintained private army.