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Telangana Turmoil Cops, students, clash at Osmania varsity Suresh Dharur Tribune News Service Hyderabad, February 15 At Osmania varsity, the nerve centre of the Telangana agitation, a violent clash took place between the police and students. The resignations of all 10 legislators of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which has been spearheading the statehood agitation, and one each from the BJP and the Telugu Desam Party were accepted, while letters of two Congress MLAs — R Damodar Reddy and Ch Muthyam Reddy -— and a lone PRP MLA were still under consideration of the Speaker. The MLAs had put in their papers to protest against the “unfavourable” Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Justice Srikrishna Committee set up by the Centre to go into the statehood issue. Though an all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) had set this evening as the deadline for all MLAs and MLCs to quit their posts, the response has been lukewarm, particularly from the ruling party. The TDP put a rider saying that resignation letters of all its 39 Telangana legislators would be kept with the JAC convener and they would be submitted to the Speaker only after the Congress MLAs came forward to quit. The Telangana region, comprising nine districts and Hyderabad, accounts for 119 legislators in the 294-member Assembly. The Congress has 50 and the TDP has 39 legislators. The BJP and the PRP have two legislators each. The Congress leadership has drafted senior ministers from the region to placate the two MLAs who have submitted their resignation letters. The remaining legislators have, however, made it clear that they would not quit their posts but would abstain from the budget session of the Assembly in protest against the Srikrishna panel’s terms. Meanwhile, the Telangana turmoil found its echo in the Assembly as the opening day of the budget session was marred by disruptions, walkout and boycott. The regional divide was clearly visible in the House as members raised competitive slogans of “Jai Telangana” and “Jai Samaikya Andhra”. For the first time in the recent memory, the ruling party members staged a walkout and boycotted the Governor ESL Narasimhan.s address to the joint session of the state legislature. Later, the Telangana legislators staged a sit-in in the Assembly premises.The Governor made an oblique reference to the ongoing political unrest in his speech and said: “During the last few months, the state has been going through difficult times affecting public order, pace of development and image of the state. We have every responsibility to ensure peace and tranquility and offer protection to the life and property of the people”. Meanwhile, Osmania University campus, the epicenter of Telangana agitation, was once again on the boil with students clashing with the police. As a result, the police resorted to baton-charge, lobbed teargas shells and fired rubber bullets to quell the mob. Several students and media personnel, who were on the spot to cover the agitation, were injured in the lathi-charge A large number of mediapersons laid siege to OU police station to protest against the alleged “highhandedness” of the police and demanded action against the officials responsible for attack. The CM K Rosaiah and Home Minister Sabita Indra Reddy tendered unconditional apology to the media for the police action and assured a full-fledged inquiry into the incident. Later in the evening, the High Court, acting on a petition filed by some students, asked the police and paramilitary forces to vacate the OU campus immediately and said they should not enter the premises without request from the university authorities.
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