When a restaurant worker J Srinivas Rao made an attempt on the life of YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy by stabbing him on his arm with a sharp knife at Visakhapatnam airport on October 25, Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu tried to wash off his hands saying his government had nothing to do with the incident.
“The incident happened in the airport premises which is under the security control of Central Industrial Security Forces. The person who allegedly committed the offence claimed that he was a YSR Congress party worker and a fan of Jagan. In what way are we concerned about it?” he asked.
Surprisingly, Naidu government has appointed a Special Investigation Team of the AP police to probe the case, instead of handing over the same to a central investigation agency like CBI. What is worse, he even banned the entry of CBI into the state. And he accused Jagan of not cooperating with the state police.
On Monday, the Hyderabad high court expressed surprise over AP government’s stand. Acting on a public interest litigation, the court asked the Naidu government as to why its police were investigating the case instead of handing it over to National Investigation Agency (NIA) as the attack took place in airport premises.
The court asked the AP government to submit its explanation in this regard and postponed the hearing to Wednesday.
The PIL was filed by YSRC MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy who sought the court's intervention to transfer the case pertaining to attack on Jagan to NIA.
The petitioner alleged that case was registered under section 307 instead of Section (3)(A) of The Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act.
The petitioner held that registering the case under section 307 was misleading and that investigation, which is being taken up by state police, be transferred to NIA.
The petitioner also alleged that police intentionally ignored the fact that any untoward incident related to security will come under the jusridiction of NIA as per the section 6 of NIA act and held that Police should be held accountable for this under section 166.
