HYDERABAD: More than 150 students of PV Narsimha Rao Telangana Veterinary University were taken into preventive custody by the Cyberabad police on Friday while they were on their way to Pragati Bhavan, the chief minister’s camp office, to stage a protest after halting their buses midway on the Attapur road on Friday.
The students have been staging protests for a month against issuance of a government order on hiring of 101 veterinary assistant surgeons on contract basis. Besides, they were demanding upgrade of rural livestock units in the state.
Around 500 students left the university in two buses to stage a protest in front of the chief minister’s camp office at Begumpet following the failure of animal husbandry minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav to meet them on Thursday as promised earlier this month when the students met him.
After intercepting the buses at Attapur, police asked the students to call off their planned protest outside the CM’s camp office. When the police did not allow the buses to move on, some students got down and decided to march to the CM’s camp office. Police confronted them and took them into preventive custody. They were taken to the Moinabad, Mylardevpally and Rajendranagar police stations, and released a few hours later.
Those detained included girls but the police contingent did not have a female member. Students allege that the girls were taken into custody by policemen. Students, who had been holding protests on the university campus from morning to evening, decided to stage protests for 24 hours a day and pitched a tent on the campus near the university’s entrance.