Students hijack Telangana stir,police fear Naxal influence

The student agitation for a separate Telangana escalated on Monday with Osmania University students clashing with police several...

The student agitation for a separate Telangana escalated on Monday with Osmania University students clashing with police several times during the day,leaving Hyderabad tense.

With TRS president K Chandrasekhara Raos health becoming the primary concern for the party rather than the demand for a separate state,the agitation seems to have passed into the hands of the students and police fear many of them have been influenced by the Left ideology.

On the second day of the bandh marked by preventive custody of TRS MLAs Harish Rao and E Rajender,who were to lead a rally of students to the Assembly,the students resorted to five hours of mindless stone-pelting and violence inside and outside the Osmania University (OU) campus.

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RAF personnel and policemen guarding the perimeter of the university campus were pelted with stones as hundreds of students started targeting them. Several policemen were injured,triggering a retaliatory lathicharge in which some mediapersons were also injured.

Police Commissioner B Prasada Rao said though the cops had been told to maintain restraint,the students were bent on stirring trouble by throwing stones at police and passers-by. Nearly 600 students are sitting on a relay fast on the Telangana issue. KCRs son K T Rama Rao asked the protesters not to resort to violence. If any untoward incident occurs,this entire agitation would lose its meaning. Please show restraint, he said. KCRs fast entered its ninth day on Monday even as NIMS director Dr D Prasad Rao said KCR his vital organs were normal,though he had become weak. TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu met KCR at NIMS on Monday.

Several police officers indicated that the students were not acting on their own. Someone is controlling them,directing them every hour. There is a fear that some student leaders are influenced by Left ideology and the Naxalites,and they are directing them, an officer said.

Meanwhile,of the ten Telangana districts,the bandh was total in Hyderabad,Medak,Ranga Reddy and Warangal.

Rosaiah calls meet,Cong resolution likely

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NEW DELHI/ HYDERABAD: In the first indication that the state government was seriously contemplating adopting a resolution in the Assembly on the issue of a separate Telangana state and putting an end to the fast of president of Telangana Rashtra Samiti K Chandrasekhara Rao,Chief Minister K Rosaiah called an all-party meeting at the secretariat on Monday. However,no decision was announced by the state government and the meet ended abruptly after Rosaiah refrained from stating what the Congress High Command had decided.The Congress is likely to move a resolution in the Assembly on Tuesday. ENS

BJP corners Govt in Parliament

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Monday sought to corner the government in Parliament over the Telangana issue,demanding a bill in the current session itself for carving out a separate state. Deputy leader of BJP in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and senior party leader M Venkaiah Naidu raised the issue during Zero Hour in RS. Andhra Pradesh is on the boil. You don’t want a solution. What is the stand of the Congress and UPA ? You said you wanted a consensus. I don’t think anybody is opposing (it) now, Naidu said,accusing the ruling party of giving rise to tensions. ENS