Telangana lays siege to Hyderabad again

Protests over the Telangana issue took a tragic turn on Saturday with a student attempting self-immolation even as unprecedented security measures foiled plans by student groups to march to the state assembly to demand the resignation of all elected representatives from Telangana.

Yadaiah, a student of intermediate second year (Class 12), set himself ablaze at the main entrance of Osmania University after the police prevented students from marching towards the state assembly. The 19-year-old, a student of Noble College, set himself ablaze and started running towards the police barricade shouting “Jai Telangana”. He was admitted to the DRDL Apollo hospital in a critical condition, having sustained 85 per cent burns.

A suicide note he had written stated that he was taking the extreme step to protest the delay in the formation of Telangana state. Yadaiah, who also worked in a bar as a cashier, hails from Ranga Reddy district.

The incident heightened tensions at Osmania University, the hotbed of the agitation. The students damaged the window panes of vice-chancellor Tirupati Rao’s car when he tried to persuade them not to take out a rally. Rao instead suggested that they hold a peaceful protest within the campus.

As hundreds of students ran riot, torching three buses and damaging some shops on the outer periphery of the university, police fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob. Over 300 students were arrested at three different places in the city.

Earlier in the day, the state government deployed 20,000 personnel from police and paramilitary forces and imposed prohibitory orders in Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissionerates.   

The police siege of Hyderabad resulted in a curfew-like situation in most parts of the city as all arterial roads and lanes and by-lanes of the city were totally sealed from 5 am onward. The police did not allow businessmen to open their shops in the main commercial areas of the city. Movement of vehicles was severely restricted as police put up nine-foot high barricades with barbed wiring at many places, making it difficult even for pedestrians to walk.

The heavy police deployment notwithstanding, hundreds of students, raising slogans of ‘Jai Telangana,’ began marching from the university campus to the assembly complex. The police had already declared the rally by the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Osmania University students “illegal”. Violating prohibitory orders, the students began the rally at Arts College on the university campus but were stopped by police at Vidyanagar, just outside the campus, about 15 km from the assembly building.

Meanwhile, away from all the action on the streets, the assembly session began at 9 am and adjourned around 1 pm after chief minister K Rosaiah presented the budget. Hyderabad police commissioner AK Khan appealed to students from other districts not to come to Hyderabad for the rally.

The situation was tense in other parts of the Telangana region as well, with the joint action committees in various districts demanding that the elected representatives put in their papers. In Warangal, students of Kakatiya University stormed the District Congress Committee (DCC) office. When reports last came in, they were in full control of the facility though the police were negotiating with them to vacate the premises.

The police erected barricades on the roads connecting the city to other Telangana districts. Authorities also stopped several trains on the Hyderabad-Warangal route, apparently to prevent students of Warangal’s Kakatiya University from reaching Hyderabad. The police, however, claimed that the trains were stopped after a bomb threat. South Central Railway cancelled almost all local trains in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.