Some 11 members of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) were arrested under Cr Pc Section 151 (preventive arrest) by the police here on Thursday.

It was seen as an attempt to thwart the committee’s call for a public meeting in protest against operation Green Hunt, an anti-Naxal operation by the security forces in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.

The APCLC, along with a few other like-minded civil liberties organisations, had called a press meet at Visakhapatnam Public Library on Thursday to announce the proposed public meeting on October 12, at Ambedkar Bhavan. Six of the members including Sreeramurthy, P.V. Ramana, K.S. Chalam, P. Lalitha, Y. Nookaraju and Vignyanandam were picked up by a team from the Fourth Town police station, even before the press meet could commence, and taken to the police station.

Advocate Apparao, Venkat Rao, Ramana, Sreemanarayana and Raghuram were taken into custody by the Three Town police when they tried to submit a memorandum, protesting against the arrest, to the DIG, P. Umapathi.

All of them were however released in the evening, after bindover.

According to the police, they were arrested, as Section 30 under Cr Pc was in force, under which no meeting against the government can be organised at a public place, without prior permission.

However, APCLC members argue that Section 30 could not be invoked, as it was only a press meet to announce the date and venue of the public meeting and it was organised indoors.

Condemning the arrests, HRF State general secretary V.S. Krishna said it was a high-handed behaviour of the security forces.