Union Minister and Telangana BJP president G Kishan Reddy was placed under preventive custody on Thursday after he was stopped by the police in Shamshabad. The incident happened when Reddy was leaving for Batasingaram from Shamshabad airport to inspect a site of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government's housing scheme for the poor, news agency ANI reported.

Soon after the incident, he, along with other party leaders, sat on the road in Outer Ring Road to protest against the police's move.

#WATCH | Union Minister and Telangana BJP president G Kishan Reddy sat on the road in protest amid a downpour after being stopped by Police in Shamshabad. He was leaving for Batasingaram from Shamshabad airport to inspect the under-construction double-bedroom houses when he was… https://t.co/PGsD7jDhFE pic.twitter.com/gwiknFGEV3

— ANI (@ANI) July 20, 2023

"Am I a criminal? Am I a terrorist? I have a right to go anywhere in India," Kishan Reddy told Commissioner of Rachakonda Police DS Chauhan who tried to persuade the Union minister and other leaders to vacate the place. Kishan Reddy was later physically lifted by police and taken away from the place to a vehicle, news agency PTI reported.

Reddy had announced a plan to visit the Telangana government's two-bedroom housing site at Batasingaram in Hyderabad. Kishan Reddy had earlier condemned the "house arrest" of BJP leaders by police in view of the planned visit to the two-bedroom housing site.

Reddy alleged that the BRS government in Telanagan "is cheating people without building the double-bedroom houses and not distributing the completed houses".

"Today, as a Union minister, I wanted to visit Batasingaram and inspect the double-bedroom houses there. However, the BJP leaders across the state including DK Aruna, Eatala Rajender, Ramchander Rao and others were arrested. Are we in a Kalvakuntla emergency? Telangana, which was won by a great movement, is now under the control of Kalvakuntla family," he was quoted by ANI as saying.

(With inputs from PTI)

First Published:Jul 20, 2023 1:36 PM IST