Former OSD of Talasani Srinivas Yadav, 4 others, booked for trespassing, stealing documents

Hyderabad: A case was booked at the Nampally police station against a former officer on special duty (OSD) of former minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav and four others for allegedly trespassing into the state’s Animal Husbandry department and destroying government documents and CCTV cameras.

The persons booked include former OSD Kalyan, computer operator Elijah, Mohan, and attenders Venkatesh and Prasanth.

What happened in the Animal Husbandry department?

As per the complaint filed by Mandala Laxmaiah, a watchman at the Masab Tank office of the Animal Husbandry department, while checking all the buildings as per routine on December 8 at 7 pm, noticed something suspicious; the lock on former minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav OSD Kalyan’s office room was open.

Peering into the room through the window, he found many documents strewn across the floor, as well as some documents kept on a black cover. He said in the complaint that it looked like someone came into the office and took some important documents.

He verified the records to find that on the same day, at 5:30 pm, Kalyan, Mohan, Elijah, Venkatesh and Prasanth came there. Following this, Laxmaiah filed a complaint with the police.

Cameras broken and department director not responding

In their investigation at the Animal Husbandry Department, the police said that they found the former OSD’s room in a disturbed condition. They found many torn papers and files strewn on the floor, with most of them hastily dumped in polyethene bags. They also found some of the cameras broken and hanging from walls, and the cables of the DVR were also found detached. The police said they are yet to investigate more through technicians to trace what happened there.

The Nampally police registered a case under sections 409, 427, 448, 477, 109 r/w 34 IPC and took up further investigation. The police said that they tried to contact the director of the Animal and Husbandry Department, Dr Ram Chandar, but there has been no response so far.

Congress party puts government offices on alert

G Niranjan, senior vice-president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee at Gandhi Bhavan complained to the director general of police Ravi Gupta to instruct all the police officials in the state to have a strict vigil over all government offices.

Niranjan in his letter stated that ‘the government files must be safeguarded and there is a possibility of stealing files and records to cover the misdeeds of the previous government.’

Fire in tourism department

Earlier, on December 2, a massive fire gutted several important government files and records at the head office of the Telangana Tourism Department at Himayat Nagar. The files related to the tourism and forest departments have been gutted in the fire. Several vehicles parked on the road were damaged.

Why are files being burnt?

There was speculation before the results that files would be burnt or destroyed if the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) did not come to power. December 2 saw the first of such incidents and there are now reports of stealing of files.

A senior police officer on condition of anonymity said, “It is expected as it is a ‘withdrawal plan like Army’. If there is no evidence, there will not be any cases. For this reason, files are being burnt, and torn and there is destruction of evidence. It is clearly a motive to hide to ensure that there are no future cases against those who were in power.”