Hyderabad, March 02: The usual hustle and bustle of Holi on the Osmania University campus went missing this year with students at large, yet to come out of the trauma caused by the suicide of several youngsters for the sake of separate Telangana, keeping away from the celebrations on Monday. A section of OU Students Joint Action Committee (JAC) also gave a call to shun the festivities.
Though hundreds of students ventured out of their hostels on the festival day, the zest that is usually associated with the Holi festivities was lacking.
Being an important festival of the region, Holi used to be celebrated on a grand note on the OU campus every year. The region’s traditional art forms like `Kolatam’ used to be performed. Even politicians and pro-Telangana activists used to throng the OU, the hotbed of Telangana agitation, and join the students in celebrations amid drum beats and folk arts.
This year, in a sharp contrast, students were seen stopping motorists and smearing colours on them besides making them raise `Jai Telangana’ slogans. They chased people who tried to evade them and even girls passing through the campus were not spared. Students who gathered in large groups at the Arts College and at the Ladies Hostel let off the motorists and passersby who obliged them by raising `Jai Telangana’ slogans with just smearing of `gulal’ on their foreheads while the others were given a different treat. At the hostels too, the scene was similar.
Several students kept themselves away from playing with colours while a few indulged in the revelry.
“It is actually not a time to celebrate going by the happenings, particularly the suicides by students. The festivities should have been completely boycotted as a mark of respect to the martyrs of the separate Telangana agitation,’’ a research scholar of the OU felt. The boycott call should have been taken in true spirit, he added.
Police pickets were deployed both at the NCC gate and also near the Osmania University police station to prevent students from venturing out of the campus.
–Agencies