Adivasi Sankshema Parishad (ASP) has alleged that the police had detained four Adivasi leaders during Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan’s visit to Bhadrachalam on Saturday morning and let them off only after the Governor returned to Hyderabad in the afternoon. However, the local police did not confirm the alleged detention of four Adivasi leaders in the temple town on Saturday.
In a statement, ASP coordinator Madivi Nehru alleged that the police had kept him and three others, including Girijana Samkshema Parishath Telangana State convener Sonde Veeraiah, under detention during the Governor’s visit to Bhadrachalam in connection with Srirama Mahapattabhishekam.
The police allowed us to return home only after the conclusion of the Governor’s visit to the temple town, he said, alleging that the move amounted to curtailing their right to freedom of movement in the Agency areas. “It is an irony that we were confined to the police station during the visit of the Governor, the custodian of Agency areas as per the Fifth schedule of the Constitution, for no fault of us,” he said.
The persons at the helm of affairs should desist from “infringing” upon our Adivasis’ rights envisaged in the Fifth schedule of the Constitution, he added.
