The ongoing pro-Telangana agitation took a violent turn when agitators tried to stop vehicles transporting government employees to the Secretariat from Vanasthalipuram, on the outskirts of the State capital, on Tuesday.
Police personnel who rushed there restored to lathicharge to disperse the agitators, who clashed with the police and hurled stones at them. The windscreen of a bus was damaged. Several injured protesters were taken into custody.
Police contingents were out in strength at different places, even as trouble started with TRS activists led by K. Venkatesh Goud and K. Satyanarayana organising a road blockade at Vanasthalipuram colony. They apparently planned to stop the buses meant for ferrying government employees to the Secretariat from the adjacent NGOs' Colony.
ADVERTISEMENT
Having been tipped off about the demonstration, the police began forcibly evacuating the agitators, even as the latter resisted raising slogans. The protesters took the police off guard when they divided themselves into batches and lay in wait at different points to stop the buses.
One batch mixed with the passersby at the labour ‘adda' and surged forward when the buses reached the junction. There were no employees in the buses and the skeletal police force inside them was unable to tackle the large number of agitators.
Meanwhile, additional policemen rushed to the spot and began caning the road blockers as they refused to budge. While running for cover, the TRS workers hurled stones at the buses and the policemen. Some of them ran into nearby houses and shops and continued to shower stones.
ADVERTISEMENT
Police got the shops and other establishments closed for some time to check the activities of protesters hiding inside them. The situation was brought under control after an hour even as hundreds gathered at the junction and the police station condemning the lathicharge.
The tense atmosphere continued till the buses returned from the Secretariat and reached NGOs' Colony, with the police making security arrangements all along the route.
Succumbs to burns
Anxious moments were also witnessed at the Gandhi Hospital after an autorickshaw driver, Jaffar Khan, who immolated himself, died of his burns in the early hours of Tuesday. Anticipating trouble, the police got the autopsy performed by 10 a.m. and tried to shift his body to his house in Venkatramreddynagar in Jeedimetla only to be intercepted by Telangana agitators at Balanagar crossroads.
They forcibly shifted the body to the Rangareddynagar crossroads and kept it before the Telangana Talli statue, where Khan burnt himself. Along with others, TRS MLA Etela Rajender paid homage to the driver.
After two hours, the body was taken to the driver's house and buried in the evening.