Date:09/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/08/09/stories/2004080905220400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

`Trapped' municipal official held

By Our Special Correspondent

RAJAHMUNDRY, AUG. 8. In a mid-night drama on Saturday, Ch. Vijaya Kumar, Regional Joint Director of Municipal Administration here, was arrested by the police on the charge of seeking sexual favour from a tribal woman employee. The woman in question was working in the Peddapuram Municipality and suspended some time ago. She approached the official for revocation of the suspension. When she met him at the office, the latter reportedly asked her to meet him at the Municipal Corporation guesthouse in the evening. When she went there, he reportedly expressed his `desire.' The employee came back and reported the same to the Minister for Roads and Buildings, Jakkampudi Ramamohana Rao, who laid the `trap.'

Talk recorded

Accordingly she contacted the official, who was still in the guesthouse and said that she was `agreeable' to his demand. Cell phones were arranged to record the talk between the official and the woman after she entered the guesthouse. The Minister along with other Congress leaders were waiting in the 111 Town police station, located about 200 km from the guesthouse. When the official spoke of his mind, it was recorded in the cell phone and Congress leaders along with the police went there and caught him.

The police produced him before the Judge, who, in view of the health problems of the official, asked the police to take him to hospital and produce him before the court on Monday. The official asserted that he was a patient and about to retire in a year. Hence, he could not have sought such `favours' from an employee. It was `planned' to damage him personally, he alleged.