Published Sep 16, 2026 | 8:52 AM ⚊ Updated Sep 16, 2026 | 8:52 AM
RS Praveen Kumar (Credit: T News)
Synopsis: BRS leader and former IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar attacked the Telangana state police and Chief Minister Revanth Reddy while detailing Monday’s incident at Saifabad Police Station involving KT Rama Rao’s personal staff. He accused the police of refusing to register FIRs on complaints filed by his party. He pointed to several recent criminal incidents which, according to him, exposed the dire state of the rule of law in Telangana.
Launching a broadside against the Telangana police and the state government, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)general secretary and former IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar said the police system has fallen into the “hands of thieves”.
Addressing a news conference in Hyderabad on Tuesday, 15 September, the former Indian Police Service officer said Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy orchestrated Monday’s incident involving BRS working president KT Rama Rao’s personal aides.
He was referring to the alleged assault attempt on KTR’s public relations officer Manikya Mahesh and personal assistant PA Mahender Reddy at Hyderabad’s Saifabad police station on Monday, 14 September.
The BRS has been reiterating that a group of masked men — the Opposition party said they were Task Force personnel deployed by the ruling Congress — intimidated the duo, who were summoned to the police station in connection with an earlier political incident.
“What happened at Saifabad police station from 10 in the morning to 12 at night tells us what it looks like when the police system falls into the hands of thieves,” Kumar said while detailing Monday’s incident.
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Police have arraigned Mahesh and Mahender Reddy as accused in a case registered at Saifabad. Police registered the case after a confrontation outside the state Assembly on 7 September. Police then blocked black T-shirt-clad BRS legislators from entering the Assembly on the opening day of the Monsoon Session.
After registering the case, both Mahesh and Mahender Reddy moved the Telangana High Court. The court, however, refused to quash the First Information Report (FIR) and allowed the probe to continue, but ordered against initiating coercive action against the duo.
Both men were summoned to the station at 10 am on Monday, Ganesh Chaturthi.
Kumar told reporters that they went with their lawyers and had to sit at the police station with no investigating officer amidst a power outage until roughly 2 pm. One of their counsels, former assistant government pleader for the Home Department Vishveshwar Rao, contacted the Deputy Commissioner of Khairatabad Police, K Shilpavalli, requesting that the proceedings be expedited. Kumar alleged that the counsel received no reply.
The men were interrogated before a scene reconstruction at Gun Park and were made to wait more. At 6.30 pm, the two men asked for a written release order and offered to return the next day. However, they received no favourable response.
The BRS claimed that around that time, roughly 30 masked men gathered outside the station, and about 15 of them walked in.
Kumar alleged the group identified Mahesh and Mahender Reddy as those who had abused police at the Assembly and moved menacingly towards them. The sub-inspector, who was questioning the duo, physically drove them off. Kumar claimed that the duo had heard the unidentified men emphasise, “our police were attacked,” multiple times.
The BRS general secretary then questioned what did not happen next. Saifabad’s jurisdiction covered the Secretariat, the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council, the DGP’s office, the CID and the Intelligence wing, he said. Why not even one of the 15 was detained, he asked.
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DCP Shilpavalli earlier said the men were locals who came seeking permission for a Ganesh Chaturthi DJ event. They argued with Rao’s aides and the police, left, and CCTV footage showed no assault.
Kumar questioned the police’s version, citing High Court orders on sound pollution. He said it was not the procedure for obtaining such permissions, and that a mob of masked men should have alerted the police.
“Why would they come for a DJ permission wearing masks? Why were they in masks at all? Is there a government mandate to mask up due to an ongoing pandemic? ” he asked.
He cited CCTV footage from outside the police station and asked why men on a lawful errand would run when struck once by a sub-inspector, and on what basis the DCP identified them as locals. He questioned why none had been arrested and demanded that the station release public visuals from its CCTV cameras.
“The script, the story, the screenplay and the direction were all written by the Home Minister, who is also the Chief Minister, Mr Revanth Reddy,” he said, calling the attack premeditated. He alleged that Monday’s incident was a trial run on two staff members and, if it succeeded, the plan was to do the same to KTR or Harish Rao.
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Former ministers Sabitha Indra Reddy and Sunitha Laxma Reddy filed complaints at Saifabad PS over the alleged police assault on them during the Assembly confrontation on 7 September.
No FIR followed, Kumar said. His complaint at Banjara Hills against Shadnagar MLA Veerlapally Shankar, over remarks about wanting KCR dead, produced only an acknowledgement.
He said that despite the High Court orders directing the DGP to act against officers involved in the 7 September manhandling and submit a report, no FIR has been filed. But police registered a case at Saifabad on 9 September based on a complaint from a woman constable, against BRS leaders including KTR and Harish Rao. Police invoked sections that included those related to outraging the modesty of a woman.
Kumar said the government was using a vulnerable young woman to carry out their personal vendetta.
Kumar also criticised the Cyber Crime police for failing to register an FIR over a complaint about a fake social media profile, Revanth Reddy had cited in the state assembly. The account in question, named ‘Sandhya Rao BRS ’, claiming to be the international secretary of BRS, said in an X post that former Chief Minister KCR ordered the controversial purification ritual outside his farmhouse in Erravelli.
“It was a fake profile. The claims made by the account and cited by the Chief Minister in the Assembly could have escalated tensions between two groups and put KCR, KTR, and other BRS leaders at risk. I personally went to the police station on 10 September to file a complaint and asked them to probe and identify who was behind the handle. But no FIR has been filed; there hasn’t even been an acknowledgement like in the Banjara Hills case,” Kumar said.
He listed other instances such as an alleged attack on Harish Rao’s camp office and remarks by former MLA Mynampally Hanumantha Rao against BRS leaders. He said that violent threats and escalations against the leadership and cadres were not being taken seriously.
The complaint filed after Monday’s alleged attack, he said, was drafted by the party’s legal team and handed over between 7:30 pm and 9 pm. An acknowledgement came only after a struggle, on a slip marked “10” with no am or pm. No FIR was registered despite senior leaders, including Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Dasoju Sravan, pressing for it, alleged Praveen Kumar.
“Which law says don’t register an FIR?” he asked. “If the complaint was false, record it under Section 161, investigate and close it as a mistake of fact, but register it first.”
Kumar then contrasted this with Monday’s arrest of seven men from Markook mandal over the alleged turmeric water purification ritual near KCR’s Erravalli farmhouse. Forensic teams were mobilised there, he noted, but nothing comparable had moved on complaints by two former ministers.
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The BRS general secretary then appealed to the police to introspect on the rule of law in Telangana and cited several recent instances to support his arguments.
Referring to the Monday night’s murder at Bandlaguda, he said people would be frightened, and children would refuse to sleep if they come across the videos, adding that under this government, women and children were not sleeping anyway.
He claimed that the police refused to act on time when a Dalit family’s house in Jogulamba-Gadwal’s Repally village was rammed with a tractor after a 22-year-old man from the family married a woman from the BC community.
Kumar questioned why the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Minister Adluri Laxman, and the district higher-ups have not addressed it yet. He raised the killing of Sirisha, the 21-year-old nurse found dead in the staff quarters of Prime Hospitals and said the Chief Minister had not visited the scene of the crime.
He said the survivor in the POCSO case against Bandi Sai Bhageerath, son of Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar, is still asking for a chargesheet as a matter of right. He questioned the delay in the chargesheet despite the Court’s directions and accused Revanth Reddy of trying to save Sanjay.
In a direct address to the state’s police, he said the job postings were temporary, but their work stayed in history. He warned that they were being used as pawns in someone else’s screenplay, and that they would pay a heavy price in the future if they failed to follow the law.
“Is this what we were taught at the National Police Academy? Is this what the khaki uniform taught us? Is this what the IPC and CrPC, now the BNS and BNSS, taught us? Is this what the police manual taught us?” he said, and said the police were answerable to the people of the state.
Appealing to the general public, he said, “People of Telangana, law and order in our state has hit rock bottom. We have to protect ourselves. These police are in no position to protect us.”
Kumar demanded the arrest of Monday’s attackers, FIRs on all pending BRS complaints, and a Special Investigation Team to examine the Saifabad episode.
