AP & TS: As the Andhra Pradesh police allegedly broke into the dam and installed a barbed wire fence around midnight on Wednesday, tensions at Nagarjunasagar increased. Up to the 13th gate, out of the 26 gates in the Sagar project, some 500 police officers, under the command of senior AP Police Department officials, asserted their control over half of the gates. Mobile phones and CCTV cameras were destroyed in the altercation between the dam Security Personnel Force (SPF) and the AP police. They then made it to the thirteenth gate, where they erected a barbed-wire fence and gained possession of the dam.
Following receipt of the information, DSP Venkatagiri of Miryalaguda met with the AP police at the dam to discuss the maintenance issue pertaining to water drainage. Telangana officials asked the AP police to take down the barbed wire barrier. But when they didn’t hear back, the Telangana authorities withdrew along with their employees. During the state’s split, the Telangana administration was given control of Nagarjuna Sagar by the Krishna River Management Board. Telangana has now put in place a number of safety and water release procedures. – AP & TS
Apart from the increasing levels of tension, opposition parties also condemned the altercation between the police forces of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, claiming that it was a ploy by the BRS administration on election day. They contend that such an altercation may affect the BRS’s polls in an emotional way, giving them a possible edge in the elections.
Ratnavali