Congress cries foul over false case against Youth Congress activists

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Saturday has strongly condemned the police for registering cases against Youth Congress activists for a post on social media on increasing incidence of women missing.

Stating that the case registered against the Youth Congress activists was false, fabricated and politically motivated, All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesperson Sravan Dasoju asserted at a press conference here.

He demanded that the police immediately withdraw the case against Youth Congress General Secretary and Social Media Department in-charge Venkat Gurijala and two others.

Earlier, Sravan, along with TPPC working president Ponnam Prabhakar and Youth Congress president Anil Kumar Yadav submitted a memorandum to Director General of Police Mahender Reddy demanding withdrawal of case registered against Youth Congress activists.

Sravan pointed out that a leading Telugu daily carried a report on June 11, stating that there were a total 545 missing cases, especially of women and girls during last 10 days.

Based on the report, the Youth Congress published a post (graphic design) questioning the functioning of State government and the police. He said the post was aimed at creating awareness among the people so that they could take all precautionary measures to ensure safety of women and girls.

He said the graphic design and the content did not have any abusive or provocative or misleading false information and was very much within the statutory framework of freedom of expression.

However, he said the cybercrimes police station had filed a case under IPC 505 (1)(b), though the contents of the graphic design did not convey any sort of negative intention to cause fear or alarm among the public and did not induce to commit an offence against the State or public tranquillity.

"If reporting the missing cases and questioning the government is a crime, then why similar case was not booked against the newspaper which originally published the report," he asked.

He said that the Director General of Police himself had tweeted that of 545 missing people, nearly 300 had remained untraced. Similarly, of 116 missing persons, 83 could not be traced in Cyberabad Police Commissionerate limits. Likewise, 51 out of 100 and 43 out of 87 missing persons are still untraceable in Hyderabad and Rachakonda Police Commissionerates limits respectively.

He also said that based on the FIR filed by cybercrimes police station, few other newspapers reported that the Telangana Yuva Synyam social media post claimed that the number of missing complaints were on the rise and 82 people had gone missing in the State within 24 hours on Saturday.

However, he clarified that the specific contents of FIR and the news items published were not connected to Telangana Yuva Synyam and Venkat Gurijala and others are falsely implicated in this case without any crime committed by them.