Manakondur PS Pillaged Over Local's Suicide

Tensions prevailed in Manakondur mandal of the Karimnagar district as several villagers today marched on and attacked a local police station over the suicide of 22-year-old K Shravan.

As per the local cops, four youth, including Shravan, had gotten into an argument with a few police officers who were on duty making arrangements for Dussehra a few days ago. The four were allegedly drunk and fell on one of the police SIs (Vamshi Krishna) and caught his collar, which apparently led to the tussle. The police then took them to the Manakondur PS and lodged two criminal cases against them, IPC 332 and 353 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from doing his duty; and assaulting an officer) asked the boys to appear before the SI on Wednesday morning.

As per the villagers, Shravan was humiliated by the "harassment" and hanged himself from a ceiling fan early in the morning on Wednesday.

Angered by the suicide, a mob of villagers (led by several women) pillaged the PS on Thursday morning. Later, they carried Shravan's body and staged an agitation against "police brutality". They then rushed, along with the body, to the Warangal-Karimnagar road and blocked the traffic for more than two hours causing a grid-lock.

This led to the officers calling in additional forces to take control of the situation. Several other government officials and politicians including MLA M Balakrishna, an MP and the Commissioner Of Police rushed to the spot fearing escalation.

After this, the Commissioner suspended the SI and ordered a thorough and unbiased probe into the incident, and asked the villagers to help the cops find out what had exactly happened. Agreeing to this, the villagers called off their agitation.

The MLA announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 10 lakhs to the kin of the victim and also offered one of them a job in the police department.