MAHBUBABAD: The Thiruvanathapuram-Korba train chugged into the railway station of this sleepy town on the edge of Warangal district and was flagged down to make an unscheduled stop.
The Intercity Express was due to carry Congress MP Jagan Mohan Reddy into the station for his Odarpu Yatra, and all other stations had to stand by.
Things had not warmed up at the station yet. With Jagan due to arrive at at 11 a.m, his loyalists Konda Surekha, her husband Konda Murali, M Kavitha and P Padmavathi arrived at the station with much fanfare and made their way to platform no. 1. There were hardly 50 Telangana supporters at the station but they had already struck up a raucous chorus.
Murali and his followers joined issue with counter-slogans in support of Jagan.
As news spread of the arrival of the Jaganites, hundreds of Telangana supporters, mainly students and locals, materialised from the narrow streets around the station and massed on platform no. 2, a stone’s throw away, so to speak.
To add interest to the proceedings, nearly 30 students lay down on the tracks in some merriness. Soon slogans turned into taunts and slippers were shown at the other side. Some of the who had got down to the tracks found that the abundant railway ballast around was a handy reply to the impudent Jaganites. The first missile landed square in the midst of the cavalcade on platform no. 1 and all hell broke loose.
Sitting on a window seat on the train to Korba, passenger A Subramanyam saw the genesis of the riot.
``Our train had halted on track no 3, bang in the midst of the exchanges.
Suddenly stones started raining down on our train.
We pulled down the windows and locked the doors of the compartment.
We were terrified. We feared for our lives. Not a single policeman came to the passengers’ rescue.’’ When the granite rain became a torrent, the gunmen of Konda Murali, Konda Surekha, Kavitha and Padmavathi hurried their protectees into a waitinig room, barricading themselves in with a table and assorted furniture. But the hail of stones crashed the door open and a missile flew into the room and struck Kavitha.
It looked like war now. A gunman poked his gun out of the window of the waiting room and fired a shot.
More of the gunmen did the same gambit and the mob retreated a bit further down the platform and there was a respite to the Jaganites. Soon the hemmed-in supporters of Konda Surekha emerged to join battle and it raged for 45 minutes. At the end of it all, the detritus of war lay all around: smashed TV sets, sherds of asbestos, damaged canteen paraphernalia, etc. It wasn’t until the police arrived en masse that the riot abated. By then much anger had been spent.