Vijayawada, January 05: The Railway police along with local police today arrested the leaders of Joint Action Committee (JAC) for detaining three Express trains at Vijayawada Railway Station for more than one hour.
The JAC comprising students and political leaders of 13 districts of Andhra and Rayalaseema Regions had given a call for ”Rail Roko” on Saturday last to exert pressure on the Centre for United Andhra Pradesh, coinciding with the eight-party meeting convened by Union Home Minister P Chidamabaram on the Telangana issue in New Delhi today.
The JAC leaders, including its Chairman and former Congress minister Mandali Buddha Prasad, Vijayawada Congress legislator Malladi Vishnu, Mylavaram TDP legislator Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and party MLC Rajender Prasad, APCC Secretary K Shivaji, Krishna district JAC Students Wing Convenor D Avinesh and others squatted on the tracks at the railway station and stopped the Thiruvananthapuram-New Delhi Kerala Express, Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express and Howrah-Hyderabad East Coast Express.
Later, the police forcibly vacated the JAC leaders from the tracks and shifted them to Railway Stadium, creating a mild tension for some time. However, they were released later. Due to ‘Rail Roko’ the occupancy ratio (OC) was very poor with only 12 per cent recorded, railway sources said.
The agitators also halted Vijayawada-Narsapur and Narsapur-Vijayawada Passenger at Mandavali and Kaikaluru Railway stations in Krishna district.
The Yeswanthapur and Simadhri Express trains were also detained by the agitators at Nuzvid railway station, reports said.
The Gudivada-Vijayawada Passenger was also stopped by the agitators at Gudivada railway station in support of the unified State.
As many as 88 passenger trains including MMTS trains were suspended by the South Central Railway (SCR) last night in view of the ‘Rail Roko’ in Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana regions.
At Jaggayyapet in this district, the agitators obstructed the vehicular traffic at Garikipadu check post resulting the vehicles bound to Hyderabad coming to a grinding halt.
–Agencies