BJP condemns arrest of party leaders

The BJP has strongly condemned ‘illegal’ arrest of party president N. Ramchander Rao and several other leaders to stop them from marching towards the Secretariat as part of their protest programme on Friday.

Mr. Rao, who was returning to the capital after a day’s tour of Chevella district, was stopped and taken into custody at Moinabad. He was taken to the local police station. The police have also arrested other BJP leaders and workers before they took up the ‘Save Hyderabad’ protest to highlight the alleged negligence of the Congress government in ensuring adequate precautionary measures to deal with hanging wires, bad roads and overflowing drains.

General Secretary Kasam Venkateswarlu charged that the inaction of the government has led to deaths of innocent persons in recent incidents at Ramanthapur and elsewhere in Old City. Party spokesperson N.V. Subhash said the protest was organised as the State government had failed to resolve problems of people and ignoring development of Hyderabad. Former MLAs Chintala Ramchandra Reddy and N.V.S.S. Prabhakar were among those arrested as also city unit leaders like Lankala Deepak Reddy and N. Gautam Rao.