Karimnagar, November 29: Police lathicharge, road blockade, dharnas and damages to buses marred the entire Telangana areas when the police spoiled the ‘fast-unto-death’ by arresting the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) President K Chandrasekhara Rao near Alagnoor Cross Roads while he was proceeding to Siddipet to commence ‘fast-unto-death’ on the demand for a separate Telengana state.
TRS activists and students resorted to dharnas, road blockades and even damaged buses in various places in Adilabad, Nizamabad, Medak and Karimnagar in which several buses were damaged protesting against the arrest of their leader, demanding separate Telangana in the wake of Supreme Court declaring Hyderabad ”as a free zone” for posting of policemen in Andhra Pradesh.
The police also spoiled the ‘fast-unto-death’ organsied by the TRS MLA T Harish Rao in protest against the arrest of KCR and arrested eight others including former MLAs Padma Devender Goud, Satyanarayana Rao and Ramalinga Reddy and others.
The police resorted to lathicharge on the Osmania University students when they pelted stones on police in which one student was critically injured and admitted to a local hospital. A postgraduate student was also injured severaly when he jumped down from the Manjeera hostal of the Osmania University.
Meanwhile, the police booked cases against the TRS President in Khammam Two Town Police Station and produced before the Khammam Magistrate who remanded him to 14 days judicial remand.
However, a large number of activists staged dharna before the Khammam sub jail. Situation in Karimnagar town became tense with the disconnection of power and stoppage of TV telecast by private regional channels as the wires were snapped at various places in town leading to a virutal blackout of the event.
The Osmania students also pelted stone on police when the news spread that a student tried to commit self immolation by setting fire on himself after pouring petrol in LB Nagar area in Hyderabad.
He was admitted to a local hopsital with severe burn injures. The vandals had damaged the statue of former Union Home Minister K Brahmananda Reddy near the KBR park as the TRS saw him to baulk the separate Telangana agitation in 1969 when he was the Chief Minister of the state and more than 300 people were killed during the protest movement which rolled on for more than a year.
Rapid Action Force was also brought in and stationed in University camps to quell any possible out break in the wake of Rao’s arrest.
——Agencies