Tirupati cops sell off cigarettes, suspended

TIRUPATI: Four police officers of Tirupati, all from Tiruchanur police station, have been suspended on charges of corruption on Wednesday.

Superintendent of police P. Parameswara Reddy conducted an internal investigation and found out that the four accused, Circle Inspector M. Subrahmanyam, Sub-Inspector Veeresh, M Ramakrishna and B Ramakrishna Reddy, had colluded with a group of private persons, had a private godown forcibly vacated and tried to encash a cigarette consignment worth Rs 20 lakh belonging to ITC.

It was found during the investigation that a resident of Hyderabad identified, as Nishant, owned a two-floor building in Tirupati rural mandal, which he had leased to a resident of Chennai, identified as Muthu Kumar. Muthu Kumar was a distributor of ITC and other FMCG products. When Nishant wanted to sell off his building, Muthu Kumar refused to vacate which pushed Nishant Kumar to contact a real estate broker R Manikanta, a resident of Bairagipatteda, Hyderabad.

The real estate broker managed to sell off the building to Dr Rehman. Following this, when the new owner of the property asked Muthu Kumar to vacate the building, he refused again.

However, Dr Rehman managed to get the building with the help of local rowdies.

The entire plot was taking place between private persons. It was here that Triuchanoor SI Veeresh intervened and with the help of Manikanta, he illegally took possession of ITC's cigarette consignment worth Rs 20 lakh and encashed. He also shared some portion of the ill-gotten money with his colleagues at Tiruchanoor police station – SI Ramakrishna, CI M subramanyam and SI B Ramakrishna Reddy.

Based on the investigation report, the SP issued an order suspending the four police officers with the approval of Anantapuram Range DIG Ravi Prakash.