VIJAYAWADA: Former Chief Minister and YSRCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy sought to know whether Andhra Pradesh reached a point where people fear the police most.
“Be it custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna, whose body was allegedly cremated secretly by the police or the suicide of Kranti Kumar after accusing police harassment in a selfie video, and a series of similar incidents across Andhra Pradesh are not isolated tragedies. They are the outcome of a dangerous culture fostered under the TDP coalition government’s Red Book governance. Today, people are increasingly asking whether the police are functioning under the Indian Constitution or under @ncbn ‘s Red Book. Fear, not justice, is becoming the defining feature of policing in the state,” Jagan posted on ‘X’ on Saturday.
Recalling that the YSRCP warned that encouraging political vendetta through police harassment would allow the police to take the law into their own hands would corrupt institutions and embolden sections of the police force to operate beyond established laws, rules and constitutional safeguards from the day the Red Book was unveiled, he noted that warning has become a painful reality. Political opponents were targeted first. Social media activists followed. Journalists, intellectuals and dissenting voices came next, he added.