4 CJP volunteers from T detained in Bhopal; released, escorted back by cops a day later | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Four volunteers of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) from Telangana were temporarily detained by Madhya Pradesh police at Bhopal railway station on Oct 8 while travelling to New Delhi, ahead of the party’s Oct 10 protest at Jantar Mantar, local representatives of the organisation said on Friday.They were later released and escorted back to Telangana by four cops, members said.These volunteers were among the dozens of CJP members who were allegedly forced to deboard trains bound for the national capital.Speaking to TOI on his way back from Bhopal, Stanley Korani, who was among those detained said that they were forcibly deboarded from the Telangana Super-Fast Express around 10.30 pm Oct 8 and kept in detention for almost 24 hours. “Close to 50 policemen got onto the train and took us away without any explanation. They confiscated all our belongings, including our mobile phones, and took us to a guest house where they interrogated us about why we were heading to New Delhi. They also questioned us about our association with CJP,” claimed Korani. He who travelling with three others: Rajesh Korapaka, Rangasai Reddy and Venkatesh Goud.From there, he added, they were taken to two more guest houses and also made to undergo a medical checkup at a govt hospital in Bhopal.“Though we repeatedly asked the cops why they had illegally detained us, they refused to offer any answers. They also refused to allow us to continue with our onward journey when they found out that we were heading to the protest,” Korani said. Eventually around 9 pm on Friday, the cops took the four volunteers to the Bhopal station. “Four policemen — two of them in uniform — are accompanying us back to Warangal from where we will take a bus to Hyderabad. There is no way we can attend the Jantar Mantar protest now,” Korani told TOI.Meanwhile, local CJP members said that they were still seeking information about the three volunteers from Andhra Pradesh who were allegedly detained at the Gwalior railway station around 4 am on Friday. They were travelling to New Delhi aboard the Sampark Kranti Express and were identified as Baba Fakhruddin, B Venkatesh and Renjith Rajeev.“Our local lawyers who approached the Gwalior police were refused any update. While CJP’s AP state coordinator Stephen Pramod was also on the same train, he had deactivated his SIM card and managed to escape,” said Sreeja Reddy, CJP’s south zone coordinator.CJP members suspect that the operation had been planned for some time alleging that Stanley and others had been receiving suspicious calls for the last few weeks. “They were constantly being asked about their whereabouts. In fact, some unknown individuals even attended a closed-door CJP meeting in Hyderabad on Sept 26. When we cornered them, they claimed they were intelligence officials doing their duty. We had to ask them to leave,” Sreeja added.Hyd protest todayThe volunteers said that CJP will hold a protest in Hyderabad on Saturday not only to protest against SIR but also over the alleged illegal detentions which according to them were a “clear attempt at suppressing public’s democratic right to protest peacefully”.“Detentions like these will not deter us from coming out in large numbers and hold the govt accountable as and when needed. They cannot shake our foundation or stop us from building the CJP in Telangana and AP. Apart from Hyderabad, we have a protest planned in Warangal on Sunday,” said Sreeja.