Police hunt on for Chiranjeevi's son-in-law in dowry case

Shirish has been absconding since March 14 after Chiranjeevi's daughter K Srija filed a complaint against her husband Shirish and mother-in-law Suryamangala alleging she was being harassed for additional dowry of Rs 50 lakh by the duo for the past one year.

A local court had yesterday dismissed the anticipatory bail of Shirish, though it granted conditional bail to his mother. "We have ample evidence against him (Shirish). Three special police parties have been formed to arrest him and they have been searching him at different locations," a senior police officer, who is supervising the probe in the case told PTI, when asked if Shirish would be arrested in the wake of the court order.

He said an alert has already been sounded last week itself at airports and the police personnel also conducted searches at the residences of Shirish's relatives in the city and elsewhere, but they were found to be locked. Meanwhile, C V L Narasimha Rao, the counsel of Shirish Bhardwaj, said he would file a fresh bail application before the 8th Additional Metropolitan Sessions Court tomorrow for Shirish and added his client was ready to appear for counselling before the Metropolitan Legal Services Authority (MLSA) which had on Tuesday last asked Shirish, Srija and Suryamangala to appear for counselling on March 31.

Srija, the youngest daughter of Chirajneevi, married Shirish in 2007 against the wishes of her family at Arya Samaj here and then fled to Delhi. She had also approached a court there seeking protection from her family. In the complaint, Srija accused Shirish of physically assaulting her besides not allowing her to meet her parents.