Protesting the undemocratic detention of MLA RK Roja, senior YSRCP leaders approached the Andhra Pradesh DGP Sambasiva Rao and demanded to know the particulars of their party colleague.

The DGP is said to have told them that MLA Roja was in their custody and that she was being brought down to Hyderabad. The DGP is said to have explained that Roja was taken into custody based on her Twitter comments which were taken as the basis for her intentions to disrupt the Women Parliamentarian’s meet.

The DGP further stated that if MLA Roja gave a written statement that she will not do anything to disrupt the meeting then they ‘may’ consider it and may allow her to proceed to the meeting.

This however appears to be a delay and diversionary tactic and if the police were serious about it they could have asked for it in the airport itself. They rather chose to isolate her and detain her for over an hour on the ‘pretext’ that the holdup was due to Dalai Lama’s arrival there. The police then decided to take her on a whirlwind tour instead of dropping her at her hotel.

Her being brought to Hyderabad is clearly to make sure that she is nowhere close to the meet.

What is perhaps more discomforting than this entire ordeal is the reason that the DGP of the state offers as intelligence inputs for their decision to detain her.

Roja’s Twitter account is no different from that of any other popular politician, if not a bit more endearing due to her disarming and ‘in the face’ demeanour, that most fans see as being honest.

She has never been able to hold herself back particularly when it came to issues relating to crime against women. Her post on February 7 questions the incidence of growing crime against women in Andhra Pradesh.

Perhaps the police themselves felt undermined at their lack of sufficient efforts to bring down the figures and were bit willing to go through with this undemocratic act that has brought a blot on their own department.