Hyderabad, December 18: One person allegedly from Rayalaseema region was roughed up by the lawyers near Ranga Reddy District Court in L B Nagar when he raised slogans in support of united Andhra Pradesh when the lawyers were staging a protest following the death of a fellow lawyer Y Dayakar Reddy on Thursday.
Dayakar Reddy had committed suicide last night in support of separate Telangana.
All the lawyers boycotted the court after learning about Dayakar Reddy’s death. After the postmortem, the body was shifted to the court where hundreds of pro-Telangana lawyers were waiting to pay tribute to Dayakar Reddy. The body was kept near the median of the road and immediately some lawyers blocked the National Highway.
Meanwhile, one motorist, who did not wait and started driving through the lawyers, was forcibly stopped and soon a heated argument ensued. Amid suspicion that this person was from Rayalaseema region, going by his slang, the lawyers argued with him.
When the motorist was asked to say ‘Jai Telangana,’ he, to everyone’s surprise, said ‘Jai Samakhya Andhra’.
Immediately, a group of angry lawyers along with few outsiders started thrashing him and pushed his vehicle down. The person then began calling for help from the police but to no avail. Soon, the scared motorist said ‘Jai Telangana’ but that did not help. After the police intervened, the motorist tried to leave the place but he was again chased by the lawyers and was roughed up.
At one point, the lawyers tried to set the motorcycle on fire, which was prevented by the police. Later, he left the place when the agitating lawyers were controlled by the police. Prior to this, another motorist too did not bother to stop his vehicle and tried to move ahead. But in this case, the lawyers made out that he belonged to Telangana region and he was allowed to leave, not before he raised the slogan ‘Jai Telangana’.
Nearly three buses belonging to Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) scheduled to leave for Vijayawada were damaged after the agitators threw stones on the buses even as some passengers were seated inside.Soon the traffic came to a standstill on the National Highway leaving motorists fuming.
——Agencies