Andhra Pradesh police reportedly alerted Railway police on beforehand about Kapu Garjana, but the latter ignored them.

According to sources, East Godavari police warned the railway department that the Kapu agitators may reach the railway tracks or stations to stage ‘Rasta Rokos’ besides blocking national highways.

Not stopping there, the police further advised the railway police to cancel or stop the trains from Sunday afternoon, till the meeting completes at Tuni, sources say.

But unfortunately, the railway police ignored the cautions, which proved costly even to the passengers, along with the railways.

“If the railway police had considered the suggestion, the damage would have been averted,’’ said a police official.

As most of the opposition parties blamed, even the AP government failed in giving the strict instructions to the police to control the mob.

The police on duty had to remain mute spectators as the violent rage, without any specific orders.

On the other side, a few of the police officials who were in mufti said that they could not take any action, even after watching their vehicles were burning.

The violence related activities of Kapus even did not leave Eluru Range official at the time and other police officials took him to the nearest railway station. In the process, an inspector was injured due to stone pelting.

Responding to the issue, East Godavari DSP M. Ravi Prakash said, “It’s not correct that it was a failure of intelligence and other vigilance sources. We knew about the meeting and arranged heavy security by deploying 2,700 police personnel. However, we had to observe restrain to protect innocent people caught in the violence.”

By Phani Ch