By Express News Service

KURNOOL: Six youngsters thrashed a forest officer in an inebriated condition for interrupting their booze party at Sunnipenta in Nallamalla Tiger Reserve area on Tuesday night. Adding insult to injury, the officer was made to apologise to the accused and touch their feet for “spoiling” the gathering. One of the accused claimed that he was the son of an MLC from Telangana, but police are yet to confirm the same.

The six, all of whom are from Hyderabad, were on their way to Srisailam to have darshan of Lord Mallikarjuna Swamy and had stopped at Sunnipenta for a night. The drunk gang was creating a ruckus along a road when forest beat officer Jyothi Swarup who was patrolling the area asked them to leave.

The youngsters, however, refused to push off and picked up an argument with the forest staffer. As tempers ran high, the youngsters slapped Swarup on the face and beat him up. When he tried to flee the place, they caught him by his collar and thrashed him further even as locals watched in shock. A few bystanders caught the incident on their mobile cameras.

Sunnipenta sub-inspector H Obulesu said the gang continued to beat the officer even after he bowed before them and apologised profusely.“One of the accused was heard saying that one of them was the son of an MLC, but we are yet to ascertain the claim,’’ the SI said. Swarup finally managed to escape from the clutches of the attackers and ran into a nearby residential area. He later approached the police.

The attackers have been identified as Dayanand, Srinivas, Abhinay Reddy, Kousar, Ashok Kumar and Raju from Balanagar in Hyderabad. All except Raju have been nabbed. Police registered cases against the accused under IPC Sections 323, 342, 353 and 506 and seized their vehicle. When contacted, forest field director S Savannan said the incident was being taken seriously and higher officials had been informed of the attack.