Students on the Osmania University campus prevented the police from arresting a student leader in connection with the pasting of posters calling for a militant struggle for achieving separate Telangana state, on Friday afternoon.
An OU police team, including some in plainclothes, apparently wanted to arrest Kota Srinivas Goud, a member of the OU Students Joint Action Committee (OUJAC), suspecting him to be responsible for display of posters that were pasted on walls in different hostels on the campus recently.
However, they could not succeed as Mr. Goud ran into Arts College building with other students providing the cover and blocking the policemen.
Earlier, a police team tried to enter the new PG hostel where Srinivas was staying but had to go back faced with opposition from the hostel inmates, claimed the students. Srinivas, who hails from Husnabad in Karimnagar, is an active member of OUJAC that is spearheading the Telangana agitation on the campus.
After the posters issue came to light, the police booked a case and claimed to have identified an organisation, Telangana People’s Liberation Army, responsible for it.
Poster designer held?
Meanwhile, students allege that police has picked up a poster designer suspecting his role in the episode. He is known to posters for events of the OUJAC for the last few years.
OUJAC leaders argued that he was no way involved with the controversial posters issue and the police was targeting him despite knowing that he was designing posters for the OUJAC.
They also claimed that police was trying to terrorise students with arrests and students are seriously worried that false cases might be hoisted against them.