Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Telugu film star Allu Arjun walked out of the Chanchalguda prison in Hyderabad Saturday morning at around 6:40 am, a day after he was granted interim bail for four weeks by the Telangana High Court in connection with a stampede at the premier of his movie, Pushpa 2, earlier this month.
Despite securing bail on Friday, the papers for it reached the jail officials late in the night, owing to which he had to spend the night in the prison. The prison manual states that prisoners cannot be released at night. The High Court had also asked Arjun to submit a surety of Rs 50,000.
The actor was arrested on Friday morning from his house in Hyderabad. Drama unfolded after as the interim bail order came when the police were taking Arjun to the Chanchalguda prison as a lower court had remanded him to 14-day judicial custody.
A stampede at Sandhya Theatre in Hyderabad, during the premiere of Pushpa 2 on the night of December 4, had left 39-year-old M Revathi dead and her nine-year-old son in critical condition.
A case was registered at Chikkadapally police station against Arjun, his security team, and the management of Sandhya Theatre, based on a complaint filed by M Revathi’s husband, M Bhaskar. Police said the case was filed under BNS sections 105 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 118(1) r/w 3(5) (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt).
Friday also saw an exchange between the Sandhya Theatre management and the police. The former claim they had submitted a letter seeking police bandobast for the premiere.
The police, however, responded that they receive many requests for bandobast citing visits by political personalities, celebrities and religious programmes. Police said the organisers did not meet any officer in person and “simply submitted the letter in the inward section”.
“He (Arjun) came to the theatre, came out from the sunroof of his vehicle and started waving to the public gathered there. This gesture attracted a lot of the public towards the theatre’s main gate. At the same time, his private security started pushing people to make way for his vehicle. His team was intimated to take him back citing a large public gathering, but they didn’t act on it, and Allu Arjun was there inside the theatre for more than two hours,” the police statement said.
“Therefore, it is clear that adequate police bandobast was in place, (and) it was his actions which led to this unfortunate incident, in which a woman died, and her son is still unconscious on a ventilator even after nine days of the incident,” it added.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
