Vijayawada - Former MLA Vallabhaneni Vamsi Mohan of the YSR Congress Party has been remanded to 14 days judicial custody in a case involving violations of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, along with kidnapping charges.

The case centers on allegations that Vamsi Mohan and his associates coerced a Dalit computer operator, Satyavardhan, who was working at the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) office in Gannavaram. According to the police remand report, Vamsi played a key role in threatening Satyavardhan, forcing him to make false statements under death threats regarding a previous TDP office attack case.

The arrest came after Satyavardhan's family filed a complaint stating he was kidnapped and intimidated into providing false testimony before a special court handling SC/ST Atrocities cases. The police have charged Vamsi and his associates under various sections of the Bharat Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including Section 140(1) for kidnapping and Section 351(3) for criminal intimidation, alongside the SC/ST Atrocities Act.

Two of Vamsi's aides, A. Shivarama Krishna Prasad and Nimma Lakshmipati, were also remanded to judicial custody. The police report highlighted Vamsi's criminal background, noting he faces 16 other criminal cases.

The former Gannavaram MLA was arrested in Hyderabad's Raidurgam area and brought to Vijayawada, where he underwent eight hours of questioning before being produced in court. The judge's order came at 2:30 a.m., after which the accused were transferred to Vijayawada district jail.

Vamsi, who defected from TDP to YSRCP in 2020, is also accused in the February 2023 attack on the TDP office in Gannavaram, where he allegedly instigated supporters to ransack the office following political tensions with TDP leadership. He lost his re-election bid from the Gannavaram Assembly constituency after the TDP-led coalition came to power in June last year.