Journalists in Hyderabad and various parts of Telangana today staged protests against the Andhra Pradesh police for serving a notice to a local channel T News , which functions from the ruling party Telangana Rashtra Samithi office here.

Late last night, Andhra Pradesh police had served a notice on Narayana Reddy, Chief Executive Officer of T News, for airing an audio tape purported to be a conversation between N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, and Elvis Stephenson, nominated MLA from TRS, in the case related to cash-for-vote scam.

The notice mentioned that the channel aired the conversation which contained a material disturbing the public tranquility and violated the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act. It contended that the airing of the unconfirmed conversation was defamatory and deliberate to cause unrest.

Meanwhile, agencies have reported that Narayan Reddy has said AP police has no right to issue notices even before verifying the authenticity of the footage scientifically.

The police notice has also asked the channel management to reply within three days that why an appropriate legal action should not be initiated against them.

The Telangana Union of Working Journalists has in a statement requested the scribes to “raise the voice against this undemocratic, unconstitutional and disrespectful approach of AP CM''.

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