AP govt's go ahead for filing complaint in court against Pawan Kalyan

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday granted sanction for filing of a complaint in court against actor-politician Pawan Kalyan over his allegations that ward and village volunteers had a hand in trafficking of women.

Special chief secretary Ajay Jain issued a government order to this effect.

"Government after careful examination of the matter and in exercise of the powers...hereby accord sanction to the concerned public prosecutor to make a complaint before the competent Court against the individual named Konidela Pawan Kalyan," the order read.

He invoked powers conferred under Section 199 (4) (b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, to accord the sanction.

Jain highlighted that Kalyan made defamatory, derogatory and venomous statements against the volunteers in Eluru on July 9.

Addressing a public meeting in Eluru, Kalyan alleged that nearly 30,000 women have been trafficked from the southern state, enabled by the state government's grassroots governance system's foot soldiers, namely ward and village volunteers.

Claiming that he is privy to intelligence from central agencies, the actor-politician said that 30,000 women went missing from the state.

He said only 14,000 women managed to return and demanded answers about the whereabouts of the remaining women.

Further, he claimed that volunteers are relaying information from every village to some ruling party leaders as to who belongs to whom, how many people live in a family, if girls have fallen in love with anyone, how many widows are there and other details.

According to Kalyan, some anti-social elements are making use of this information to target widows and traffic or trap them.

Following these allegations, state women's commission chairperson Vasireddy Padma recently issued a notice demanding Kalyan to produce detailed evidence within 10 days.