Overview

• Padi Kaushik Reddy was arrested in the early hours of June 21 at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport by Warangal Subedari police on allegations of extorting ₹25 lakh from a granite quarry operator and demanding an additional ₹50 lakh.
• Police registered charges under sections 308(2), 308(4) and 352 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the Telangana High Court dismissed Reddy’s petition to quash the FIR earlier this week.
• Prosecutors presented call logs during preliminary hearings as evidence of threatening phone calls placed by the MLA to the businessman.
• Leading BRS figures, including K.T. Rama Rao and T. Harish Rao, have denounced the arrest as a politically motivated attack, staging protests at the Subedari Police Station that prompted heightened security and preventive detentions.
• Congress leaders accused the BRS of exploiting the ‘Jai Telangana’ slogan to distract from alleged misconduct and defended the police action as part of broader efforts to tackle corruption.