Over 50 members of the Osmania University Students Joint Action Committee took the security personnel at the Secretariat main gate off guard on Tuesday morning by trying to barge into the high security zone. They were demanding that the Government should not to celebrate the State Formation Day on November 1.
The Saifabad police arrested the students and they were removed from the Secretariat area. The sudden appearance of the group of youths took the small contingent of police personnel at the main gate by surprise. Even as they tried to prevent the slogan-shouting students from surging ahead, some of latter scaled over the steel gate and to jump inside.
Meanwhile, policemen already inside the Secretariat, rushed to the main gate, thwarting the protesters’ effort to barge inside. A lot of jostling ensued with the few policemen on duty struggling to control the protestors. Pidamarthi Ravi, who led the protestors, demanded that all the Ministers from Telangana region should refrain from State Formation Day celebrations.
“For us, it is not State Formation Day but the day of traitors. How can we celebrate when nearly 400 youths killed themselves seeking formation of separate Telangana State,” he said. As the jostling continued, the Saifabad police and the Central Zone DCP, Akun Sabharwal, rushed to the place and evacuated the protestors bundling them into police vans.
The Hyderabad police had already announced prohibitory orders in the limits of Saifabad police station after a group of DSC-2008 candidates selected for teacher posts barged into Assembly premises on Saturday demanding posting orders to them. A high-level meeting presided over by the Assembly Speaker later decided to step up security at the Assembly to ensure such incidents did not recur.
