With the D-Day arriving, the police and Telangana activists kept flexing muscles on Thursday for Friday’s inevitable showdown as the Chalo Assembly agitation called by Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) cast a shadow on Hyderabad, threatening to disrupt normal life.
The police and the state government have taken a serious note of the professions of the TJAC and TRS that they would mobilise a huge number of T activists for the rally and have posted police forces, both state and central, to prevent them from resorting to any action.
The Chalo Assembly rally is likely to cause a major dislocation in normal life. The authorities have decided to close all junior colleges in Hyderabad and schools near Osmania University (OU). The most affected would be passengers arriving in Hyderabad by trains from other places since they have been partially cancelled. As there would be no MMTS services, except between Secunderabad and Lingampalli, daily commuters are likely to be affected.
Even as the police were making the security arrangements, a few Telangana activists gave them a fore-taste of what they could expect Friday. A group of students arrived at the police control room area by a city bus and quickly broke into smaller groups and made a dash to the Assembly building when the session was going on. The police who were taken off guard quickly recovered and overpowered them. They were bundled into vans and were taken away from there even as the students were raising anti-Chief Minister and anti-Seemandhra slogans.
While this was happening at the Assembly buildings, another drama was unfolding on the Osmania University campus where the students clashed with the police who were posted in strength apprehending trouble Friday since the university is the epicentre for the T movement.
The students, who wanted to take out a rally, had to face resistance from the police at the NCC gate. For a very long time, the students tried in vain to break the cordon. The situation deteriorated when some students rained stones on the police who retaliated by lobbing tear gas shells. Several students were injured in the clash.
Later in the evening, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy reviewed the situation with Director General of Police V Dinesh Reddy, Hyderabad Police Commisisoner Anurag Sharma and Cyberabad Commissioner CV Anand.
Meanwhile, the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) and the Employees Joint Action committee met and warned the Congress ministers and MLAs that they would be treated as pariahs in their own villages.
In the Assembly, the TRS and the BJP took up the Telangana cause. BJP members led by G Kishan Reddy came to the Assembly with handcuffs to symbolise police persecution of T activists. Both BJP and the TRS members stalled the proceedings in tandem forcing the speaker to adjourn the house for the fourth day in a row.