Hyderabad:
Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy — criticized after the razing of the convention centre co-owned by actor Nagarjuna Akkineni — has said the demolition drive to remove encroachments on Hyderabad’s water bodies is impartial. A 30-day notice for demolition has been issued to Tirupathi Reddy, brother of Revanth Reddy, for his home and office that are said to be in the non-development zone of Hyderabad’s Durgam Cheruvu.
This is among hundreds of notices issues to residential and commercial structures reportedly built encroaching on area that originally belonged to water bodies.
Senior Congress leaders have also got demolition notices. Earlier, properties of Congress leaders Pallam Raju and Danam Nagender were demolished by HYDRAA (Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection). The municipal authorities have issued notices to 225 row houses belonging to Telugu cine artists in Manikonda.
“I bought house in 2016-17… I did not know about any violations. If it is illegal, it has to be demolished, no other option. If I was not living here, notices may not have come for others… If they give me time, I will take my belongings and leave,” Tirupathi Reddy told reporters.
Political leaders of all hues are among those who have received demolition notices. The list includes educational institutions run by MIM’s Akbaruddin Owaisi, BRS MLAs Palla Rajeswar and Rajasekhar Reddy, whose father-in-law is a former minister and education baron.
The court has given them a week’s time to reply even as the government has had second thoughts and says they will not disrupt the academic schedule of students studying in these institutions.
“You can pump me with bullets but don’t destroy my work. I am trying to give education to so many young women,” said AIMIM chief Akbaruddin Owaisi.
A team of officers also went to measure the extent of encroachment by a farmhouse in Janwada that KT Rama Rao says he does not own but has only taken on lease. Revanth Reddy has claimed it is KTR’s property and allegedly violates a government order that the BRS government had scrapped.
