Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh was in the eye of a raging political storm in Telangana over his allegation that the State police was running “fake ISIS website”.
A day after Divijaya Singh created a sensation through a series of tweets targeting the Telangana Police, State Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy warned that either he should withdraw the inappropriate allegations against the police or face the legal action.
“Our MlAs have already lodged police complaints against him and law will take its own course against him,” he said. Talking to the reporters in Hyderabad he came down heavily on the veteran Congress leader for his allegations. He wanted him to tender an unconditional apology. “Either you prove the allegation or face the consequences”, the State Home Minister said.
In a scathing attack Reddy said that sometimes Digvjaya Singh’s mind does not work. the Home Minister said that the TRS had decided to tie up with Congress in 2014 but because of Digvijaya Singh and Jairam Ramesh it did not materialise.
Telangana Director General of Police Anurag Sharma termed the allegations of Congress leader as irresponsible. “This will demoralise the police and hurt its image”, he said demanding withdrawal of the allegations.
Digvijaya Singh had raised serious questions about the conduct of the Telangana Police which had earlier claimed credit for busting an alleged ISIS module involved in the train blast in Shajapur in Madhya Pradesh. Soon after the blast Telangana police had alerted the Uttar Pradesh Police pinpointing the local of the leader of the module Saifullah in Kanpur and his associates in lucknow. While Saifullah was later killed in an encounter, others were arrested.
Digvijaya Singh, who is also the former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and presently in charge of Congress party’s affairs in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, claimed that the first pictures of the blast in train at Shajapur were uploaded on a “ISIS website” which was in fact run by Telangana police.
The Telangana police had claimed many times in the past that it had provided intelligence inputs to the other States leading to the arrest or killing of suspected terrorist.
Apart from alleging that the Telangana Police was radicalizing Muslim youth by posting inflammatory material on the fake ISIS websites and then nabbing him, Singh asked Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao whether he had authorised the police officers to carry out such operations. If not then stern action should be taken against the culprits.
Angered over Singh’s remarks, TRS workers took to the streets and burnt his effigies in old city and other parts of Hyderabad. TRS MlA from Jubilee Hills Maganti Gopinath lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Digvijay Singh had defamed Telangana Police and the Government.