New Delhi: Congress leaders staged a protest by flying black balloons during PM Modi's arrival at Gannavaram airport in Vijayawada on Monday. Responding to questions if the Prime Minister's security was breached, police said that there was no security breach as the protest happened out of a 5 km radius from the helipad where PM Modi was about to land.
However, three persons -- Sunkadara Padmashree, Parvathi and Kishore -- were detained after they were spotted by the police walking towards the airport with black balloons. Police booked them under sections 353, 341, 188, 145 of IPC. Ahead of Modi's visit, As a precautionary measure, the Krishna district police had imposed sections Section 30 Police Act, and Section 144.
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In a similar act, five minutes after PM Modi took off from Gannavaram airport, at a place named Soorampalli, 4.5 kilometers away from the airport, two Congress members namely Rajeev Ratan and Ravi Prakash climbed an under-construction apartment and released the balloons. By the time they released the balloons, PM Modi's chopper had left the airport.
As of now, Ravi Prakash has been taken into custody while Rajeev Ratan is said to be absconding. The police are on the look-out for him.
INC Andhra Pradesh posted a video on its Twitter handle displaying the party leaders releasing black balloons, captioning it "excellent protest".