According to YSRCP president Jagan Mohan Reddy, cases of custodial death and police harassment are the result of ‘Red Book governance’

YSRCP President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

In a social media post, YSRCP President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that Andhra Pradesh had reached a point where the people seemed to be the most unafraid of all such police officers, describing the alleged death of Gade Sai Krishna in custody and the suicide of P. Kranti Kumar allegedly due to police harassment as the result of a “dangerous culture cultivated under the TDP’s Red Book administration”.

Mr. Jagan alleged that Sai Krishna’s body was secretly cremated by the police and in the case of Kranti Kumar, police harassment was evident from his selfie video. According to him, people asked whether the police functioned according to the constitution.

Since the unveiling of the Red Book, the YSRCP has warned that encouraging political vendettas through police harassment would allow the police to take the law into their own hands and corrupt institutions, encouraging sections of the police to operate beyond established laws, rules and constitutional guarantees.

“The warning has become a painful reality and the target is first the political opponents and then the social media activists, journalists and intellectuals and others who raise their dissenting voice against the government,” he said.

The YSRCP chief said that what started as political persecution has evolved into a dangerous habit of unchecked policing where common people have become victims of intimidation, harassment and abuse of power.

He said the Sai Krishna case had shaken the conscience of AP and his grieving mother was still begging for answers and asking the authorities to at least release her son’s ashes if the body could not be produced. He pointed out that Kranthi Kumar’s case is equally troubling.

He alleged that police excesses had become routine and opposition party activists were paraded on the roads on petty charges. In the name of moral policing, officers increasingly acted as judge, jury and executioner, he argued.

The Director General of Police, the Home Minister and the Chief Minister could not escape responsibility for this “collapse of accountability,” Mr. Jagan said, adding that AP deserved to be governed by Dr..BR Ambedkar’s constitution, not the Red Book rules, and the police were supposed to protect rights, enforce laws and serve justice, not act as instruments of political vendetta.

Published – 20 Jun 2026 21:08 IST