The serious comments made by Jana Sena Party president and Andhra Pradesh deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan against the lackadaisical attitude of the police and that they are yet to come out of the hangover of the YSR Congress party regime seems have had pinched chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
Hours after Pawan Kalyan raised the issue of the callousness of the police and the way some of the police officials are still adopting a soft stand towards the YSRCP activists who were involved in various cases, the Naidu government took strict action against Kadapa superintendent of police Harshavardhan Raju.
The Kadapa SP had to face the axe for being lenient towards a YSRCP activist Varra Ravindra Reddy, who was let off after being given notice in connection with the abusive postings on social media against Naidu, Pawan, Nara Lokesh and others.
Raju was shunted to the vacancy reserve (VR) and was asked to report to the police headquarters without any posting. Along with him, another circle inspector was also suspended in freeing Ravindra Reddy.
Hours later, the Naidu government suspended seven police officials who gave royal treatment to YSRCP supporter and activist Borugadda Anil Kumar by taking him to a restaurant and provided him with biryani and other dishes.
Borugadda, who was in judicial remand, was being shifted from Guntur to Rajahmundry central jail after his remand was extended by another two weeks. En route, the police took him to a restaurant near Eluru, where he had biryani. The police, too, had shared the table with him in enjoying biryani.
When some locals were trying to capture the visuals on their mobiles, the police officials shouted at them and got the videos deleted. But somehow, the videos were already sent by some people and they went viral on social media.
Since giving such a royal treatment to an accused in a criminal cases is against the rules, Guntur range IG Sarvasreshtha Tripathi ordered suspension of seven police personnel, including two sub-inspectors, one head constables and four constables.
The IG warned that stringent action would be taken against the erring police officials, who would not act as per the law and violate the rules.