Pro-Telangana groups to organise rail blockades tomorrow

The Telangana JAC activists plying kabaddi inside local bus-stand as part of the second day’s bandh in Nalgonda on Wednesday. A file photo: Singam Venkata Ramana

In a bid to mount pressure on the Centre on the separate statehood demand, pro-Telangana groups would organise rail blockades all over the region tomorrow.

Thousands of people from villages and towns would squat on the railway tracks from 6 am to 6 pm tomorrow as part of the protest named ‘Palle Palle Pattala Paiki’ (villages on railway tracks), Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) Convener M Kodandaram told reporters here today.

“We have also asked people who live in the villages all along the railway tracks to come on to the track and sit there. We have also asked them to bring their cattle and bullock carts on to the track and also cook and eat on the track itself. For all practical purposes, instead of living in their homes, they live on the tracks for a day,” he said.

The rail blockade is an attempt to send a message across to the Centre, the JAC Convener said.

He said there is no change in the ‘Chalo Hyderabad’ programme scheduled to be held on March 10.

Christened ‘million march to Hyderabad’, the programme would see lakhs of people coming to Hyderabad and not a soul would be able to move around in the city on that day, TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced two days ago.

The JAC has earlier indicated that it might reschedule the programme on March 10 as annual examinations of intermediate students are scheduled to be held on the day.

However, Mr. Kodandaram clarified today that there is no change in the ‘Chalo Hyderabad’ programme and it would be held as scheduled on March 10 as the Board of Intermediate Education was ready to reschedule the examinations.