With Maoist activities still prevalent and active on the Andhra-Odisha border, Andhra Pradesh DGP R.P Thakur has taken a measure that has become the talk among government officials. Araku MLA and Tribal Welfare minister of Andhra Pradesh Kidari Sravan Kumar has been provided Octopus security.
Kidari, though the youngest minister in AP Cabinet, is the only one to have got such an elite security cover. Octopus (Organisation for Counter Terrorist Operations) is an elite anti-terror group formed in 2007. The OCTOPUS commandos are trained to handle highly sophisticated weaponry. Apparently, after his father Kidari Sarveswara Rao got killed my Maoists, there is intelligence information that Sravan’s life also has the Reds threat and hence, the security cover has been upgraded for him.
This is the first time that the AP Government has provided such an elite security force to guard a minister. According to sources, senior ministers and other leaders in the party are fretting at such a security upgrade for the young minister. However, the seniors and TDP leaders need understand the sensitivity of the situation in which Sravan was made an MLA and need to respect it.