4 min readHyderabadJan 18, 2023 01:27 PM IST
First published on: Jan 18, 2023 at 11:57 AM IST
A criminal case was registered against Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay’s son Bandi Sai Bhageerath Tuesday on charges of assaulting another student. The incident came to light Tuesday following which the university authorities lodged a police complaint.
Dundigal police of Cyberabad booked Sai Bhageerath under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation).
Sai Bhageerath is a first-year BTech student at a private university on the city outskirts. In a video that has been widely shared on social media, Bhageerath, along with another person, can be seen hurling abuse and physically assaulting a batchmate. Ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) social media convenor M Krishank tweeted two videos of Bhageerath attacking the student.
“We have received a complaint and registered an FIR. We are verifying the details. The incident took place in the university hostel and as holidays are going on, none of the students is available in the hostel,” said P Ramana Reddy, Dundigal police inspector. According to him, the police were yet to know how old the video was. “We will question the students and staff once they are back from break.”
Meanwhile, another video released by the BJP showed Sai Bhageerath’s batchmate Sri Ram, who was allegedly assaulted by the party president’s son, stating it was an old issue that had been already sorted. “I called Bhageerath’s friend’s sister at 4 am and also texted her asking her to love me. When Bhageerath got to know about this, he approached me. I spoke to him indifferently and he assaulted me. Anyway, it is all past now. We arrived at a compromise and there are no issues between us now. We have let it go. We are friends and batchmates,” said Sai Ram in the video.
Bandi Sanjay, the Karimnagar MP, responded to the FIR against his son and called it a “political vendetta” to silence him. He blamed the TRS government and urged Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to not mess with their children’s lives to settle political scores.
“Don’t try to bring children and family members if you want to fight me politically. My son will surrender before the police,” he said.
“It is political vendetta if you have booked a case against my son for a minor disagreement between children that happened a long time ago,” he said.
Sanjay said that the alleged victim also put out a video accepting his mistake and that there was no need to make an issue of the assault. He said the university was under pressure from the government to complain against his son.
M Krishank said the BJP state president was misusing his political stature to shield his son. “This 19-year-old boy is seen in two different videos bashing up his fellow students and it is unfortunate that instead of setting an example, the elected representative and the BJP state president supports his son by attacking political rivals. He has not yet condemned the act of violence,” Krishank said, adding that the clarification video from the victim needed examination to know under what circumstances he had done so.
Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar (Facebook) 
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