WARANGAL: The overenthusiasm and negligence of a BJP worker during a protest against the alleged sexual assault and murder of a nine-month-old baby girl in the city led to a fire accident in which four party leaders suffered burn injuries.
When the party worker carelessly poured petrol on the effigy, Warangal urban chief Rao Padma, Bingi Srinivas and others who were standing close to it got engulfed in the flames.
The incident took place when the BJP workers led by Rao Padma were staging the protest at Ambedkar Circle.
Srinivas Rao, a local leader, suffered about 40 per cent burns and his condition is said to be critical. Rao Padma suffered burns on her arms and hair, whereas the other two got their feet and legs burned in the incident.
Meanwhile, party workers who were trying to rush their leaders to a hospital got into a clash with the police. In a fit of rage, a few workers destroyed the police van, leading to chaos and tension. The police, however, managed to shift all the injured to a corporate hospital for treatment.
The protesting BJP leaders have blamed the police for the entire incident. They allege that if the cops had allowed them to register their protest in a peaceful manner, the accident could have been avoided. Since the police started forcefully arresting the party workers, they had no choice but to burn the effigy in a hurry without taking precaution.
"Police are solely responsible for the incident. In order to disrupt the protest, they used force even though we didn't provoke them. Due to this, the entire environment became tense and in a hurry to burn the effigy our leaders suffered burn injuries," district general secretary Santosh Reddy told Express.
The BJP leaders are trying to shift Bingi Srinivas to Hyderabad for better treatment.