Telangana BJP President and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar was arrested by Warangal police in the small hours of Wednesday, triggering protests by his party workers. He was arrested for allegedly hatching a criminal conspiracy along with nine other persons to create rumours and provoke a breach of peace in the ongoing SSC examination.
Sanjay Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP from Karimnagar constituency, was picked up by a team of police late on Tuesday night from his residence.
The MP’s supporters tried to prevent the police from arresting Kumar, leading to some tense moments. Condemning the police action, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy termed as ‘undemocratic’ the detention of Kumar without citing any reason. The development comes days ahead of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state to inaugurate various projects.
Sanjay Kumar has been shifted to Bommalaramaram police station under Rachakonda Police Commissionerate limits here. The Warangal police had arrested three persons including a minor in the SSC Hindi paper leak. The paper was shared on Whatsapp minutes after the exam began.
Police said that Bandi Sanjay has been named the prime accused (A1) in the case. Addressing the media, Warangal Commissioner AV Ranganath, said that the SSC paper in the second language Hindi was leaked at the exam centre on Tuesday. Bandi Sanjay gave instructions to Prashanth to exploit the situation of the SSC paper leak in the Vikarabad stating that if it also happens on Wednesday it will defame the government and show it as a failure of the state government,” the remand report of police stated. The police alleged Karimnagar MP conspired with other BJP workers.
“Technical evidence by analysing the call details of the phones of the accused and Whatsapp chats of the accused proved beyond the reasonable doubt, that the accused persons are involved in a conspiracy regarding the leaking and copying of the question papers on April 4,” the police informed the court.
Three accused M Siva Ganesh, 18, B Prasanth, 33, a former journalist and G Mahesh, a lab assistant were arrested while the Warangal police issued a notice to the juvenile boy on Tuesday. A large number of BJP workers gathered there to protest Kumar’s detention and also raised slogans against Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
They demanded Sanjay Kumar be immediately released. Meanwhile, BJP leader and party’s I-T department head Amit Malviya in a tweet said: “In a midnight operation, Telangana police has arrested BJP state President Bandi Sanjay Kumar on fabricated charges of being involved in secondary school paper leak. This won’t end well for KCR”.