Hyderabad, March 13: The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) has given a call for protest demonstrations on Monday against arrest of Telangana supporters for alleged involvement in the violence on Tank Bund during the ‘Million March’ programme.
JAC chairman M. Kodandaram, former Union Minister Ch. Vidyasagar Rao and other leaders told a press conference here on Saturday that 64 persons were arrested so far on trumped up charges. It was decided by the JAC to get the arrested persons released on bail immediately by depositing the required amount in courts. The advocate members of JAC were on the job.
Referring to the cases booked against him, TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao and others, Mr. Kodandaram said the response would be contemplated when they were actually arrested. However, it was decided to observe the completion of one month since MLAs of Telangana abstained from the Assembly on March 17. The programme would highlight that the Assembly no longer represented Telangana.
He blamed the government for the violence and destruction of statues stating that they would not have taken place if the permission for the march was granted. In the absence of permission, the JAC would not own responsibility for the incidents.
Attack on media
As regards the vandalism of statues, he said it did not amount to outrage against the great personalities but the government which deceived the people of the region. In a similar manner, the statue of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was thrown in Eluru canal near Vijayawada during the Jai Andhra movement in early seventies. The JAC will discuss the move of the government to reinstall the statues on Tank Bund, he maintained. The attack on press corps and Congress MPs K. Keshava Rao and Madhu Yaskhi was a matter of concern to the JAC. The committee felt that journalists should not become scapegoats for the decisions of media managements to show the movement in poor light.
-Agencies