Stating that the Visakhapatnam police have suo motto registered FIRs against some media personnel and BJP contesting candidate, Vishnukumar Raju, with the connivance of the YSRCP leaders,TDP State unit president, Kinjerapu Atchen Naidu, on Monday made an appeal to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to initiate measures to immediately withdraw these cases.

In a letter addressed to the CEO with a copy sent to Avinash Kumar, the Principal Secretary who is the incharge of the State in the Election Commission of India (ECI) in New Delhi, the State Director General of POlice (DGP), the special general observer of the poll panel and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), the TDP State unit president said that these attempts to file cases against the media personnel only amounts to muzzling the Press freedom. Observing that the intervention of the poll panel to initiate stern measures certainly yielded fruitful results to check post-poll violence to some extent, Atchen Naidu said in the letter that the incident that took place at Kancharapalem in Visakhapatnam in which two women sustained grievous injuries for not voting for the YSRCP is really highly condemnable.

The media personnel were attacked by the YSRCP leaders as they performed their duty of filing the reports on the attack and the local police, in connivance with the YSRCP leaders, instead of initiating proper action, are only trying to divert the issue and filed cases against the media personnel, Atchen Naidu said. Also, Vishnukumar Raju, the BJP candidate from the Visakhapatnam (North) Assembly segment condemned the attack on these women at a media conference for which the police registered FIR against him, he pointed out.

“To set a good precedent, we request you to arrange for withdrawal of these cases against the media personnel and Vishnukumar Raju and take action against the police officers, who in fact, allowed the post-poll violence and now trying to muzzle the Press freedom,” Atchen Naidu said in the letter to the CEO.