Hyderabad, Jan. 5: Vijayawada’s police chief today told a live TV show he had sent lewd text messages to several women but claimed it was part of a “game” started by a local leader who wanted to set a honey trap.

P.S.R. Anjaneyulu, known as “engine” among his colleagues for his tough ways against law-breakers, spoke in the live interactive programme appearing unflappable despite the disclosures and his own bizarre claims.

Other than the representatives of the channel, the IPS officer fielded questions from ordinary people and women activists before abruptly asking for the cameras to be switched off when the posers got too uncomfortable.

The channel claimed it had records of his messages to scores of women, some of whom have claimed he made advances at them, and Anjaneyulu apparently decided to appear in the programme to present his version of events.

“Now that we are clear, we should SMS anything and everything under the sky about sex,” read a message purported to have been sent by Anjaneyulu to a woman from his official mobile phone last Monday.

But chief minister N. Kirankumar Reddy was not amused. Late tonight, Anjaneyulu was removed as Vijayawada police chief, hours after DGP Aravinda Rao sought an explanation from the officer on Reddy’s orders.

One of those who appeared on the programme was a gynaecologist from Visakhapatnam who alleged that Anjaneyulu had behaved “rather cosily” when she met him in his office to file a complaint. “He appeared with open shirt and asked an orderly to give him a massage even as I was sitting before him,” Dr Namrata said.

Anjaneyulu asserted that he never exploited anyone sexually, as his text messages might lead some to suspect, and pinned the blame on Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Vijayawada’s Telegu Desam chief and local strongman.

Vamsi, whom Anjaneyulu was trying to bring to book, had laid a trap involving a “wayward woman”, the officer claimed, to snare him. It had been going on for four months, the officer said. “I played the game along with him. He tried to trap me. Fortunately, I just sent SMSes but did nothing more,” said the officer.

Anjaneyulu also alleged conspiracy by other Desam leaders in Vijayawada. “Only those politicians and myself know what has been going on behind the exposures (of the lewd messages and alleged advances),” he said.

The officer has not been a stranger to controversy. During his stints as the police chief of Khammam, Kurnool and Guntur, he had run-ins with footloose politicians who often accused him of treating them like criminals.