ONGOLE: Revolutionary writer G. Kalyan Rao on Thursday demanded unconditional release of seven members of a fact-finding team arrested by the Chhattisgarh police allegedly under trumped-up charges.
He told reporters here that the team, comprising lawyers Balla Ravindranath, Chikkudu Prabhakar, D. Prabhakar, Durga Prasad, an independent journalist and Osmania University research scholars Nazeer, Rajendra Prasad and R. Lakshman, was ''illegally detained'' by the Telangana police on December 24 before handing them over to the Chhattisgarh police.
He contended that the team members from the Telangana Democratic Front (TDF) were proceeding to that State only to look into the alleged fake encounter cases on a large scale resulting in the death of innocent tribals and had not committed any offence. But they were booked under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and charged with carrying banned currency notes and Maoist literature, added Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights (OPDR) State vice-president Ch. Sudhakar.
