Hyderabad, March 03: In sharp contrast to the statement of the Chief Minister that the police should have observed more restraint, Home Minister P. Sabitha Reddy blamed villagers for Monday’s police firing at Kakarapalli which left two dead. She asserted that the villagers tried to take law into their hands while protesting against the establishment of the 2,640-MW power project at the place by East Coast Energy Limited.
Making a statement in the Assembly on Tuesday, she, however, described the firing as “unfortunate”. She could not fully read out her statement as the House was adjourned amid uproarious scenes. The statement said 200 villagers started pelting stones at the police who reached the place to remove the obstructions laid by them on the road to deny access to the project site. Another 500-strong crowd came to close the police as the stones thrown by them did not hit the latter.
Seeing the “menacing crowd” approaching them, the police resorted to lathicharge first and fired 34 plastic pellets before using 17 rubber bullets, leading to death of Jeeru Nageswara Rao and Sreenu Yerraiah.
Earlier, about 700 villagers, armed with sticks and rods, went berserk, burning a police jeep and damaging another one at H. N Peta-Vaddithandra junction, when police reached the spot on receiving information that people gathered there to indulge in violence.