7 Rachakonda cops under fire for evidence tampering in land encroachment case; Telangana HC issues notice

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court issued notice asking seven Telangana police officials working under the Rachakonda Commissionerate to explain why a writ petition filed by a resident of Chengicherla in Medipally Medchal Malkajgiri district, against alleged tampering of evidence and playing fraud in a land encroachment case, should not be admitted.

After going through the case details, the court asked the principal secretary Home Department, Telangana DGP to issue a show cause notice to the police officers involved including LB Nagar CI Anji Reddy, Meerpet SI Narsing Rathod, and Malkajigiri SI (SOT) Raghu Ramudu.

The other include police constables Adinarayana, M Gowry Naidu, Lingaiah, and ASI Kishore, (formerly posted as ASI Medipally).

The Case

The case dates to June 2018, when Ch Kiran Kumar, who was constructing his house in Chengicherla, had repeatedly reminded the officials of the local revenue, municipal and police departments about their inaction in not protecting government land worth crores of rupees in front of his house from illegal encroachers. He said that a park in front of his house was encroached upon and there were plans to construct a temple on it.

When Kiran received no cooperation from the local police, he submitted a representation to the commissioner of Police Rachakonda on May 14, 2019, and was directed to ACP Malkajigiri to begin an inquiry and report. However, the police concerned never took action.

Being helpless and left with no other option, he posted the issue on Twitter, about the local body being biased and silent about his grievances.

“Meanwhile, local realtors started harassing my family for raising objections to their criminal acts. I reported their harassment to the local police, then SHO Medipally B Anji Reddy, and gave a written complaint against the atrocities. Surprisingly, while not acting on my complaint, Anji Reddy also behaved in a rude manner and threatened me with dire consequences, implying that he will only protect the realtors. This shows how the government lands in my locality were being encroached upon by private individuals with the help of authorities including the police,” said Kiran Kumar.

Further, the SHO put false allegations against Kiran Kumar by hatching a conspiracy in collusion with the actual perpetrators, the local realtors. “SHO deceived the higher authorities by misrepresenting facts to his superior officers (commissioner of Police, Rachakonda) claiming that my father Ch Bayanna, who is also police personnel, had tried to occupy the government property and damaged the park area,” Kiran Kumar said.

Custodial torture

When Kiran and his father were called to the Medipally police station, they produced all the sale deeds and relevant documents and requested the police to do what was right, but Meerpet SI Narsing Rathod refused to see the documents and asked them to fight the case in court, for which they raised objection and requested him to conduct a free and fair investigation.

“Narsing Rathod became abusive and the police teams manhandled me and my father in the police station. We were subjected to custodial torture. The disgruntled officers also clearly stated that the locals want to evict us from our locality because we are from a Scheduled Caste. My father raised a complaint against these five officials but the complaint was not received,” said Kiran speaking to News Meter.

This whole episode was recorded on the police station's CCTV cameras. As per the instructions of SHO Medipally, SI Raghu Ramudu filed an FIR by suppressing the facts and gave a false report to higher officials. They subjected us to physical torture and mental agony by restraining us on false accusations.

RTI seeking CCTV footage filed

After 21 days of judicial custody, Kiran Kumar filed an RTI seeking CCTV footage of the Medipally police station in September 2019. Ironically SHO Medipally replied to the letter stating that “I am here to state that the contents of CCTV footage backup are available only for 15 days. The information of September 26, 2019, which was asked more than 25 days later is not available.”

“It is clear that even though the CCTV footage was available in the police station for 15 days from the date of the crime, it was not preserved even though a cognizable offence was reported. The footage was purposefully not preserved to safeguard the five police personnel who have indulged in the custodial torture,” said Kiran Kumar who approached the chief Information commissioner, Telangana.

The commissioner examined the chargesheet produced by the appellant and directed the PIO to furnish the CCTV footage within 15 days. SHO Medipally then replied that the CD which contained the CCTV footage is broken So he is unable to furnish the CC footage CD.

The court has directed show cause on or before August 17. The notice can be served to the respondents by the petitioner’s counsel to take notice and appear before the High Court in person or through an advocate on August 17.