Telangana Congress leader arrested for stealing donkey

Hyderabad, Feb (IANS) In a bizarre incident, a Congress leader in Telangana was arrested for stealing a donkey.

Venkat Balmoor, the President of NSUI's Telangana unit was taken into custody after he led a protest with a donkey on Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's birthday on Thursday.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Jammikunta Police Station in Karimnagar on Friday.

Venkat Balmoor was named as accused number one. Six other accused in the case were shown as absconding.

They were booked for unlawful assembly, provocation with intent to cause riot, theft and showing cruelty to animal. The FIR was booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 143, 153, 504, 379 read with 149, Section 67 of IT Act and Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

The FIR was registered on a complaint by Tangutoori Rajkumar, a resident of Jammikunta about theft of his donkey.

Venkat, who had contested recent by-election to Huzurabad Assembly seat, was arrested after the protest at Satavahana University in Karimnagar. He and others had placed up a picture of the Chief Minister on a donkey. They were protesting over the government not filling vacancies in the state government.

Congress leader incharge of party affairs in Telangana Manickam Tagore condemned Venkat's arrest. "Unbelievable by KCR garu, how crazy when power goes into your head you can put false cases against a student leader. No words to condemn the misuse of power by Telangana first Hitler," tweeted Tagore.

State Congress chief Revanth Reddy has also condemned the "illegal" arrest of the leader.