Madanapalle office fire sparks sabotage theory

Tirupati: The mysterious fire that broke out in the Madanapalle Sub-Collector office on Sunday night is turning into a major controversy and it is suspected that some bigwigs were perhaps involved in the incident. “One thing is clear. It is not an accident. It is an incident,” DGP Dwaraka Tirumala Rao stated on Monday evening after questioning various officials and examining the site of the incident.

Earlier, before the Assembly session began, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu convened a meeting with the Chief Secretary, DGP, CID and intelligence chiefs and directed them to rush to the spot by helicopter and take up a thorough probe and submit a report by 5 pm. Again in the evening, the CM reviewed the situation. This incident assumes importance as the former minister Peddireddy is alleged to have grabbed 986 acres of land, Naidu told the officials.

The DGP speaking to the media said that the sequence of events following the fire gave rise to several doubts. “Fire broke out in the section where 22 A files were kept. This is a critical section which has files pertaining to assigned lands, alienation of lands, birth and death certificates.

The fire was first noticed around 11.30 pm. The village revenue assistant who was there informed the Deputy Tehsildar about the incident. The Deputy Tehsildar informed the RDO who then informed the fire brigade,” he said. However, the RDO did not inform either the SP or the District Collector about the fire and this raises several doubts, the DGP said. “Initially, it was felt that there could have been a short circuit. But the power authorities made it clear that all wires were intact and there was no question of any voltage fluctuation since the substation was adjacent to this building,” he said.

The DGP said that they also found some fresh matchsticks near the window and recovered a heap of burnt files about 50 metres away. One of the files was that of a petitioner regarding his land. He said all these point fingers towards possible sabotage.

The DGP said forensic experts had also taken up the probe to ascertain whether it was sabotage. He said 10 teams have been formed and all suspects would be interrogated.

He further said anyone involved in this would be severely punished as per law and in a day or two will decide if the case should be transferred to the CID or not. He said the police had detained senior assistant Gowtham Teja for interrogation. Teja, who belongs to Punganur, was in the office until 10:30 PM on Sunday, despite it being a holiday. He was reportedly dealing with the 22A land records. Annamayya District Collector Ch Sridhar said that running files relating to 25 subjects including 22A

lands, assigned lands, and court cases were burnt while other files were in the digital format. He said all files are generated at Tehsildar’s office and they can be retrieved and tallied.