Guess how many tears were shed or tear-gas shells lobbed in the Osmania University campus, the hotbed of Telangana agitation? While there is no count of the tear drops, the number of tear-gas shell burst since 2009 are more than 450, going by records at the OU police station.
250 cases booked
Police have booked more than 250 cases under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) during protests in the OU campus.
Stone-pelting by students at police and the latter responding with tear-gas shells, had become a common sight. It later turned a cat-and-mouse game, as the intensity of the agitation came down over the last two years.
In June 2013, two teenagers – Santosh and Vinod – were injured when they torched abandoned tear-gas shells in the OU campus. The latter received serious burn injuries when the shells exploded.
A few days prior to that a protester was hurt when a tear-gas shell fired by police struck him in the neck during a stone-pelting incident near the NCC Gate.
With Parliament finally passing the Telangana bill, OU police personnel heaved a sigh of relief.
Even the barricades have been put aside at both entrances of the varsity.
“Even if the agitations have ended, we have to do our primary duty of maintaining law and order. We still have to keep our eyes open, as this is a year of elections,” said Kacheguda division ACP Ranjan Rathan Kumar.
