Facing flak from the opposition and the people of the state, Andhra Pradesh police have displayed solid action in the cases of attacks on temples. The AP police cracked 13 out of 19 such cases, nabbing the accused behind these incidents.
Andhra DGP Gowtam Sawang formed special teams to nab them. The Chittoor District wing of the Andhra Pradesh police has successfully cracked the ‘Chittoor- Nandi desecration’ case within just 72 hours.
The auspicious ‘Nandi’ outside the ‘Abhaya Anjaneya Temple’ was desecrated on 27 September. GD Nellore police immediately registered an FIR and started investigation. During the early hours on Wednesday, upon receiving credible information that certain members of the gang behind this incident were hiding in the Kanipakam Mandal, one of the three teams of police rushed to the location and successfully nabbed the entire gang of 8 members.
Interestingly, 5 out of the 8 accused who were arrested belong to the neighbouring state of Karnataka, which makes this an inter-state gang. The police investigated further the modus operandi of the gang to unravel the entire plot.
It was also revealed that the accused were conspiring to carry out similar acts on temples in Andhra Pradesh.
SP Chittoor, S. Senthil Kumar said, “People tried to project this incident as a targeted attack due to the negligence of the police which is entirely false. In this case, we traced the accused within 2 days of registering the case. We have also taken up a massive drive to ensure the safety of religious places. Have asked all the management to install CCTVs.”
On the other hand, DGP Gowtam Sawang said, “Firstly, we have arrested the accused in as many as 13 out of the 19 cases of attacks on temples/ temple properties reported since the Antarvedi incident(Chariot burning in West Godavari Dist).”
“We are confident that we will be able to crack the rest in due course. All these are standalone incidents, each one has a different motive. There seems to be a rather aggressive attempt being made to link all these incidents to spin the wrong narrative,” Sawang said.
“We have mapped a total of 47593 places of worship out of which there are 28,567 temples”, the DGP said.
“Only 10 % of the structures were equipped with CCTV cameras. We have issued notices to all the authorities of the respective temples to take necessary steps to ensure safety,” he said.