Hyderabad, January 22: The second day of Telangana bandh called by the students JAC evoked mixed response and passed off peacefully barring stray incidents of forcible closure of shops and dharnas by political parties.
The OU students took out a peace rally on the campus protesting yesterday’s lathicharge on the students. The bandh call was given by the JAC in the wake of suicide of an MCA student, K Venugopal Reddy, on the campus for separate Telangana.
Nearly 2,000 students took part in the rally from the Arts College to the NCC Gate. Heavy police deployment was made to prevent any untoward incident.
Earlier, a group of students took out a mock funeral procession of Chief Minister K Rosaiah from the Arts College and burnt his effigy at the NCC Gate for his comments yesterday that he was not aware of the lathicharge on students.
Meanwhile, nearly 10 members of the Telangana Teachers JAC were taken into custody at the NCC Gate when they tried to enter the campus to express solidarity with the students. Elsewhere, members of Rangareddy district Bar Association staged a dharna in front of MLA D Sudheer Reddy’s house demanding his resignation. They relented after the legislator told them that he had already resigned to his post. The advocates of Nampally Criminal Court Bar Association staged a dharna on the court premises. Advocates at the Secunderabad courts also sat on a relay hunger strike demanding separate Telangana. Advocates organised a relay hunger strike on the AP High Court premises. BJP senior leader Ch Vidyasagar Rao visited the hunger strike camp and expressed solidarity. The political JAC led by its convenor Prof M Kodandaram staged a dharna in front of Board of Intermediate Education, Nampally, demanding postponement of Intermediate examinations and valuation of examination papers by lecturers of Telangana region. Meanwhile, TRS activists stormed into the Sandhya theatre, which is screening movies in spite of the bandh call, and forced it to close down. At Addagutta, pro-Telangana activists deflated the tyres of an RTC bus while motorcycle-borne miscreants pelted stones on two RTC buses at Secunderabad Club damaging their window panes. Police took several Telangana activists and leaders into custody when they tried to forcibly close business establishments in various parts of the city.
–Agencies