Vijayawada, Feb 14 (IANS) A city court sent YSR Congress Party leader and former MLA Vallabhaneni Vamsi Mohan to judicial custody for 14 days in a kidnap and SC/ST Atrocity case.
Vamsi Mohan, who was arrested in Hyderabad by a police team and brought here on Thursday, was produced before a judge in the night after questioning for more than eight hours.
After hearing the arguments from both sides, the judge pronounced his order at 2.30 a.m.
Vamsi Mohan’s aides A. Shivarama Krishna Prasad and Nimma Lakshmipati were also remanded to judicial custody.
They were subsequently shifted to the district jail in Vijayawada.
A case under Bharat Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 140 (1) (kidnap), 308, 351 (3) (criminal intimidation) and under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was booked against Vamsi and others was booked for kidnapping a computer operator at Telugu Desam Party (TDP) office in Gannavaram.
The police stated in its remand report that Vamsi played a key role in threatening computer operator Satyavardhan and the latter did whatever Vamsi’s aides told him due to death threats.
The police also said in the report that Vamsi has a criminal background and facing 16 criminal cases.
A team from Patamata Police Station arrested the former Gannavaram MLA from his apartment in the Raidurgam area of Hyderabad on Thursday and brought him to Vijayawada.
He is also accused number 71 in the case related to the attack on the TDP office at Gannavaram in 2023 when YSRCP was in power.
Satyavardhan, who is the complainant in the TDP office attack case, recently appeared before a special court dealing with SC/ST Atrocities cases and filed an affidavit stating that he has nothing to do with the case.
Later, Satyavardhan’s family members complained to police that he was kidnapped, threatened and forced to give false statements in the TDP office attack case. On their complaint, police registered a case against Vamsi Mohan and others.
Vamsi Mohan was also accused in other cases booked after the TDP-led coalition came to power in June last year.
In December last year, 11 persons including a personal aide of Vamsi Mohan were arrested in the case related to the attack on the TDP office at Gannavaram.
The YSRCP leader is accused of instigating his supporters to ransack the TDP office in his constituency in the NTR district in February 2023 when YSRCP was in power.
The incident occurred after TDP and YSRCP activists allegedly clashed over the vile comments made by Vamsi against the then leader of opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh.
Vamsi defected from the TDP to the YSRCP in 2020 and has since been a vociferous critic of the TDP and its national president Chandrababu Naidu.
After the TDP-led coalition came to power in June, Vamsi’s house was attacked allegedly by TDP supporters.
Vamsi suffered defeat from the Gannavaram Assembly constituency. He was elected from the same seat in 2019 as TDP candidate but later defected to YSRCP.
–IANS
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