Cases of custodial death, police harassment are outcome of ‘Red Book governance’, alleges YSRCP president Jagan Mohan Reddy

Published 20 June 2026 · india

Describing the alleged custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna and the suicide of P. Kranti Kumar allegedly due to police harassment as the outcome of

Describing the alleged custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna and the suicide of P. Kranti Kumar allegedly due to police harassment as the outcome of a “dangerous culture fostered under the TDP’s Red Book governance,” YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said in a social media post that Andhra Pradesh reached a point where people appeared to be fearing the police the most and similar incidents being reported from across the State were not isolated tragedies. Jagan alleged that Sai Krishna’s body had been cremated secretly by the police and, in Kranti Kumar’s case, police harassment was evident going by his selfie video.

He said people were asking whether the police were functioning as per the Constitution. From the day the Red Book was unveiled, the YSRCP had been warning that encouraging political vendetta through police harassment would allow the police to take law into their hands and would corrupt institutions and embolden sections of the police to operate beyond established laws, rules and constitutional safeguards. “The warning has become a painful reality and political opponents are being targeted first and then the social media activists, journalists and intellectuals, and others raising their voices of dissent against the government,” he said.

The YSRCP chief said what began as political persecution evolved into a dangerous habit of unchecked policing, where ordinary people were becoming victims of intimidation, harassment and abuse of authority. He said that the Sai Krishna case had shaken the conscience of A.P. and his grieving mother was still pleading for answers and asking authorities to hand over at least her son’s ashes if the body could not be produced. He pointed out that Kranthi Kumar’s case was equally disturbing. He alleged that police excesses had become routine and opposition party activists were being paraded on roads for petty allegations.

In the name of moral policing, officers were increasingly behaving like judges, jury and executioners, he alleged. The Director General of Police, the Home Minister, and the Chief Minister could not escape responsibility for this “collapse of accountability,” Mr. Jagan said, adding that A.P. deserved governance under Dr..B.R Ambedkar’s Constitution, not Red Book rule, and police were meant to protect rights, uphold the law and serve justice, not function as instruments of political revenge.