During questioning by CID, Nara Lokesh reportedly gave evasive replies, but he claimed that irrelevant questions were asked.
TDP scion Nara Lokesh speaking to media after emerging from six hours of grilling by CID in Vijayawada. (Supplied)
After questioning him for over six hours on Tuesday, 10 October, the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) has yet again served a notice on TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh to appear for questioning in connection with the Amaravati Inner Ring Road Scam on Wednesday.
The CID, according to sources South First reached out to, issued the notice to him as the officials could not extract any information from as he remained unhelpful.
The CID officials, who summoned him for questioning today, posed about 50 questions to which he is understood to have given evasive replies.
The charge against Lokesh is that he was involved in the change in the alignment of the IRR so that it passes close to the lands which his firm Heritage Foods Limited had purchased.
The CID has listed former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu as Accused No 1 (A1) in the case, former minister P Narayana as A2, Heritage as A5, and Nara Lokesh as A14.
Recently, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had dismissed the petition Lokesh had filed for anticipatory bail and asked him to cooperate with the CID while asking the investigation agency to issue notices to him under section 41 A of the CRPC.
After this, a team of CID officials went to Delhi and served notices on him as he was camping there mobilising support for his father and TDP supremo Nara Chandrababu Naidu who is currently in judicial custody.
Later, after the completion of the interrogation by the CID on Tuesday, Lokesh told media persons that said that the CID officials did not ask him any question related to the Amaravati Inner Ring Road scam.
He said during the six-hour interrogation, the CID had posed about 50 questions but none of them pertained to how he or his family benefited from the project.
Instead, the questions focused on his roles and responsibilities during his time as the director of Heritage Foods Limited.
He said that the only question the officials asked him about the IRR project was whether the proposal on its alignment came to the notice of the group of ministers.
In response, the TDP leader mentioned that he had asked them to show the documents related to that incident since it occurred six years ago. However, the officials failed to provide any evidence, he said.
Lokesh reiterated that there was no wrongdoing on his part and, therefore, there was no need for him to fear the investigation agency.
Lokesh said that his father Chandrababu Naidu was sent to jail solely because he raised issues concerning the Polavaram project, the proposed greenfield Andhra Pradesh capital at Amaravati, unemployment, and the false cases against being filed individuals opposed to the ruling YSRCP government of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
He asserted that anyone who questions the government or conducts a padayatra is being falsely accused and imprisoned, despite lack of evidence.
He said that if false charges had not been filed against him, he would be with the people, conducting his Yuva Galam (Voice of the Youth) padayatra.
He lashed out at Chief Minister Jagan for stating that he had nothing to do with Naidu’s arrest.
“Jagan does not understand to whom the CID reports. He should know that it is an organ of the government and it would report to him. Maybe he should sit with the DGP and learn how the Police Department functions,” he said.
When asked about Jagan’s claim of providing a golden administration for Andhra Pradesh, Lokesh challenged the chief minister to address the dismissal of a doctor from service when he questioned the government about masks and a girl’s gang rape incident that occurred just 2 km from his residence before making any claims about the state.
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