Hyderabad: Telangana IT and industries minister D Sridhar Babu on Thursday criticised the opposition party for the recent attack on govt officials in Vikarabad district and said the govt was investigating if there was a conspiracy behind the attacks.
“They (opposition) were there and trying to create a ruckus in the guise of farmers. Our agencies are trying to work out if there was any conspiracy behind this. If we find one, we will not spare anybody,” he said.
The district administration officials were attacked on Nov 11 when they went for a public hearing on land acquisition for pharma companies.
“Kodangal Area Development Authority officer Venkat Reddy was beaten black and blue by 20 organised people. There was also a gruesome attack on the district collector. What if the stone had hit him on the head?” he asked.
The minister accused the opposition of trying to foment trouble when the govt was trying to promote industries. “They just want to demolish democratic institutions and damage public property. They want to scare public officials who are apolitical,” he said.
He said when Congress was out of power they resorted to democratic forms of protest. “When we were in opposition for the past 10 years, if people were dissatisfied, we resorted to the democratic framework of appealing to govt and protesting in a democratic way and also approached courts for justice. We neither beat up any officer nor threatened or scared them,” he said.
Referring to the 19,000-acre Pharma City project mooted by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi govt, he accused the then govt of trying to promote red category pharma units in villages.
He gave an assurance that the land acquisition process would be done democratically, taking into account public opinion. “We want to do everything democratically and would like to listen to the people’s problems. We will try to reason with them and convince them in a democratic manner,” said Sridhar Babu.
