CID serves notice to TDP’s Nara Lokesh over ‘Red Book’

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Friday served notice to TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh for allegedly threatening them in the name of ‘Red Book’.

The CID had approached ACB court informing that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader is threatening the CID officials.

The CID officials had on Thursday tried to serve notice to Lokesh at his residence and since they could not personally serve the notice, they brought the matter to the ACB court’s notice.

On the court’s suggestion, the notice was served through WhatsApp on Friday.

The TDP leader acknowledged receipt of the notice.

The ACB court last week adjourned to January 9 the hearing on the CID petition seeking permission to arrest him for violation of conditions laid down in notice issued to him under Section 41A of CrPC on September 29 in Amaravati Inner Ring Road case.

The CID explained that Lokesh violated the conditions during his interviews with certain vernacular Telugu news channels on the occasion of completing his Yuvagalam padyatra.

The CID had issued 41A notice after Lokesh had filed a petition for anticipatory bail in the Inner Ring Road case. The TDP leader had appeared before the CID officials.

The CID informed the court that Lokesh violated the conditions listed in the notice by intimidating the witnesses. It claimed that he more specifically targeted the official witnesses who deposed under section 164 CrPC, against N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is his father and a co-accused in the case.

The court was told that Lokesh intimidated key official witnesses with the threat of persecution in case of change in the party in power in the coming elections.

This was aimed to cause them to stop cooperating with the investigation.

For the last few weeks, Lokesh has been carrying ‘Red Book’, claiming that it has names of all the police officials who were following Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s direction to target him, his father Chandrababu Naidu and other TDP leaders.

The TDP general secretary had also reportedly told a few media houses that once the TDP comes to power in the elections scheduled in the next few months action would be initiated against the officials whose names are written in ‘Red Book’.

Lokesh had alleged that some officials tried to obstruct his padyatra to gain favor with the Chief Minister.

He accused these officials of violating rules and taking the law into their own hands, leading to the filing of false cases against TDP workers.

He had claimed that to hold these officials accountable, he has been documenting the names of those responsible in the ‘Red Book’.

He had publicly displayed ‘Red Book’ at few places during the padyatra, which concluded recently.

He had reportedly stated that once the TDP comes to power, it will give back to the officials what they did to the TDP leaders over the last five years.