On Wednesday, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Kothakota Srinivas Reddy issued orders transferring 85 police personnel from a single police station, citing charges of dereliction of duty, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Starting from sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors to home guards working in the high-profile police station of Punjagutta in the centre of Hyderabad, all the police officials were transferred and asked to report at the City Armed Reserve (CAR) headquarters.

“Senior police officials drawn from other police stations are being posted at Punjagutta,” a police official in the Hyderabad police Commissionerate said.

The Station House Officer (SHO) of Panjagutta police station, B Durga Rao, had already been suspended on January 2. This action was taken on the grounds of alleged assistance provided to Mohammad Amer Rahel, the son of former Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) lawmaker Mohamad Shakeel Ahmed, in evading a drunk driving case. Additionally, another driver was falsely implicated in the case.

Rahel, who subsequently managed to escape from the police station and fled to Dubai, was discovered to have been driving his BMW luxury car. The vehicle had collided with barricades at Praja Bhavan, the former residential bungalow of BRS president and former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, located in Begumpet, on December 24.

In the course of the investigation led by senior officials, it came to light through mobile phone data records that Rahel had communicated with Durga Rao. It was revealed that Durga Rao implicated Rahel's driver, Abdul Aarif, in the case and included his name in the first information report (FIR).

A Congress leader, well-acquainted with the situation, stated that the state government had received specific information indicating that the police officials at the Panjagutta police station were still receiving instructions from BRS leaders.

“There is a suspicion that these cops were also passing on information about the movements of the Congress leaders to the BRS leaders. Hence, the mass transfers,” the Congress leader said.

In January 2018, the Panjagutta police station received recognition as the second-best police station in the country, as per the rankings by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The RS Puram police station in Coimbatore secured the first position in the rankings. The ministry assessed police stations nationwide using a comprehensive set of 360 parameters.

Image source: ANI