PD act invoked against Valigonda reporter who blackmailed govt employees, doctors
A reporter in Valigonda town was detained under the Preventive Detention Act on Friday. Katta Srinivas Rao alias Srinu (48) was extorting money from government employees and local political leaders by threatening to publish false news reports about them.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 29 Oct 2021 1:16 PM GMT
Hyderabad: A reporter in Valigonda town was detained under the Preventive Detention Act on Friday. Katta Srinivas Rao alias Srinu (48) was extorting money from government employees and local political leaders by threatening to publish false news reports about them. He was also stalking women staff in government hospitals.
He has been lodged at Cherlapally Central prison.
Srinu, a resident of Nagaram village in Valigonda mandal, is a local reporter for the newspaper Maro Kiranalu. He used to go around government offices and hospitals and take photographs of empty chairs while the officials were on leave or on field duty. He then threatened the officials saying he would publish the photos in his paper claiming that they were absent from their duties.
He also claimed to be a follower of slain gangster Nayeem and extorted money from the public to settle land issues. He threatened to have them eliminated by his followers if they did not pay up. He was also involved with the sand mafia in Valigonda town and whenever officials stopped his vehicles, he threatened to get them arrested in SC/ST cases.
Since 2020, he was involved in nine cases of extortion, criminal intimidation, and molestations of nurses.
Recently, doctors, nurses, and other government employees had come out and staged dharnas in Valigonda town against the reporter. Some more victims had come forward to lodge complaints against him.
The Valigonda police arrested him on 25 September and remanded him to judicial custody. To prevent him from indulging in such criminal activities, Mahesh M. Bhagwat, the commissioner of Rachakonda police, invoked the PD Act against Srinu and sent him to Cherlapally Central prison on Friday.
