VIJAYAWADA: A 16-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted by Director General of Police D Gautam Sawang on Friday to probe temple desecration cases in the State. The SIT will be headed by Additional Director of ACB GVG Ashok Kumar. Its members include Krishna district Superintendent of Police M Ravindranath Babu, Additional SP, SIB, S Sridhar, Additional SP, CID, LV Srinivas Rao, DSP C Narendranath Reddy, DSP M Veera Reddy, ACP West (Vijayawada) K Hanumantha Rao, ACP Dwaraka (Visakhapatnam), RVSN Murthy, Paderu CI P Pydipu Naidu, CI (Vijayawada) M Srinivas Rao, Podili CI V Sriram, Venkatagiri CI N Nagamalleswara Rao, ACB SI Satish Kumar, SI (Intelligence - Vizianagaram) GAV Ramana, Disha PS (Vizianagaram) SI P Ramakrishna and Kovuru SI K Venkataramana.
The SIT will investigate all the incidents of temple vandalism that took place in the State from September 2020. The Director of FSL will accord top priority to the request of any forensic support by the SIT. The CID and Intelligence Bureau will also extend their full cooperation to the SIT in the course of investigation. Further, the SIT will coordinate with SPs, liaise closely with local police and identify the links by studying the pattern of the attacks on temples.
The cyber crime police stations of CID in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam will assist the SIT in the probe, keeping in view the complexity of the cases. In the order, the DGP stated that the SIT chief can request him for supplementing additional officers and also for any logistics support as and when required. Further, the SIT chief will periodically update the progress of cases to the Additional DGP (Law and Order).