Student sets himself ablaze protesting arrest of Kadapa MLC

In other incidents, Irate mob set ablaze the tahsildar office, BSNL telephone exchange, Roads and Buildings executive engineer’s office, sub-treasury and a post office in Pulivendula town. Computers and records were gutted.

Chandrasekhar, an ITI student of Lingala in Pulivendula mandal attempted to end his life in his house in Singapuram village in Yellanur mandal in Anantapur district, (bordering Pulivendula)in the early hours of Sunday, anguished at the arrest of Kadapa MLC Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy.

Chandrasekhar was rushed to Pulivendula Government hospital, where doctors administered first aid and concluded that he suffered 60 per cent burns. Terming his condition as critical, doctors sent him to RIMS hospital.

Agitations for unified Andhra continue

Agitators espousing the cause of a unified Andhra Pradesh went on a rampage deploring the forced hospitalisation of Kadapa MLC Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy and set ablaze Government offices in Pulivendula town in Kadapa district late on Saturday night. Decrying the arrest, an all-party committee called for a three-day bandh from Sunday.

Irate mob set ablaze the tahsildar office, BSNL telephone exchange, Roads and Buildings executive engineer’s office, sub-treasury and a post office in Pulivendula town. Computers and records were gutted.

Police could not control the large group of protesters that went berserk and set ablaze a jeep on the Pulivendula excise office premises and four lorries in other parts of the town. BSNL phones went dead after the exchange was burnt.

The protesters ransacked a private nursing home and damaged an autorickshaw in Badvel town. Hundreds of irate youth went round Kadapa city and forced closure of shops and damaged the glass panes of a bus, a lorry and a mini-lorry. Protesters enforced a total bandh of Kadapa, within minutes of Mr. Vivekananda Reddy’s arrest and hospitalisation.

Kadapa SP D.S. Chowhan and other police officials undertook intensive patrolling in Kadapa city and quelled mobs, which pelted stones and forced closure of shops and establishments on Saturday night, following a three-day bandh called by an all-party committee.

Meanwhile, Kurnool Range DIG V.R.K. Mohan Rao reached Kadapa to take stock of the situation.