At last, Telugu Desam Party media coordinator Darapaneni Narendra was on Friday granted bail by a local criminal court in Vijayawada in connection with a case filed against him by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the Andhra Pradesh police department.
Narendra, who was charged with circulating an alleged fake news pertaining to a gold smuggling episode in Gannavaram airport last month, was arrested by the CID police on Wednesday night from his residence.
The CID authorities shifted him to CID regional office at Mangalagiri at Guntur and produced him before the court on Thursday evening. But since the judge had already left the place, the cops took him to the residence of the judge, where he was cross examined.
Narendra told the court that the CID police had tortured him and beat him up black and blue.
He alleged that they took his signature on a prepared statement, saying he was circulating fake news pertaining to alleged involvement of a CMO official in gold smuggling case.
The judge referred Narendra to a hospital for medical examination to see whether there were any external and internal injuries on his body.
His lawyers told the court that the CID police had not given him any notice under 41-A of Cr PC and he was directly taken into custody.
They pointed out that in case of the arrest of a journalist, too, the CID police did not follow the rule of law and were reprimanded by the high court.
However, the CID counsel argued that Narendra was circulating the news in the name of Amaravati WhatsApp group, damaging the reputation of the CMO and the government. He said the accused should be remanded to judicial custody.
After seeing the medical report and hearing the arguments of the accused and the prosecution, the judge granted him bail.
