Several Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders including the party district secretary Nunna Nageswara Rao were taken into preventive custody by the police hours before the arrival of Municipal Administration Minister K.T. Rama Rao here on Monday. They were let off late in the afternoon only after Mr. Rama Rao left for Madhira after attending a string of programmes in the town. Police sources said they were taken into preventive custody to prevent “breach of peace and to maintain public order.” Sources said a police team detained Mr. Nageswara Rao from his house on and shifted him to the Khanapuram Haveli police station where several other leaders and cadres of the party’s frontal organisations were detained briefly during the minister’s visit.Mild commotion prevailed at the Sundaraiah Bhavan when the party cadres put up resistance to the alleged attempts by the local police to detain some cadres in front of the party office.
A group of SFI and PDSU activists reportedly made a vain bid to stop the convoy of the minister at NTR circle in protest against the passage of Private Universities Bill.
However, the police on bandobust duty whisked them away from the spot even as the student activists raised slogans demanding setting up of a State-run university in the district.
In a statement, Mr Nunna Nageswara Rao alleged that the TRS dispensation was trying to curtail the democratic rights of people and prevent the Opposition from raising public issues mainly the woes of homeless people.
