Anti-T Protests Rage at Secretariat : Employees’ Novel Protest

The rallies and protests against the CWC decision to bifurcate the state continued to have its echo both in the State Secretariat and other government offices in the city. While the Seemandhra Employees Forum in Secretariat took out a rally walking backwards on Wednesday demanding that all Seemandhra MPs and MLAs resign to prevent the division of the state, tense moments were witnessed at the Vaidya Vidhana Parishad office in Kothi area.

As the Seemandhra employees including women employees were staging a dharna, the pro-Telangana employees also came there and shouted Jai Telangana slogans and both sides indulged in war of words and jostled with each other. Police finally intervened and took some of the agitators into custody and dispersed the crowd.

In Secretariat, the employees, boycotted their duties, assembled at ‘J’ Block and walked backwards upto ‘L’ Block by raising slogans against the division of the state and said that “Hyderabad belongs to all”. Addressing the employees, Forum convener Murali Krishna said that the employees chalked out the programme to give signal to the Centre to revert the decision of division of the state. He said that they have started meeting heads of various political parties urging them to change their stand on bifurcation of the state. They decided to continue their stir until the government takes back its decision, he said.

Referring to the APNGO proposed strike from August 12, he said that the Secretariat employees would also join the stir. He said that the discussions are going on with the other employees associations and they would join the strike, he said. He further said that the strike would be intensified and they would choose various forms of agitations to put pressure on Centre to keep the state united. Kamalapuram MLA Veerasiva Reddy, who expressed his solidarity with the employees, said that the pain and agony of the employees are genuine and the government should address them first. He said that they would also share the pains of the employees and extend all cooperation to them.

United AP agitation: 124 cases booked, 1,000 held

Hyderabad: In the wake of united Andhra Pradesh agitation which had rocked the Seemandhra region for the past eight days, a press release issued here on Wednesday, said around 124 criminal cases have been registered for offences such as damaging statues of national leaders, buses (both RTC and private) and public property, besides rioting and assault, and over 1,000 persons have been taken in to preventive custody. As many as 221 persons, in connection with the 124 cases, have been arrested, so far. A total of 39 cases have been registered against the persons who indulged in damaging of statues of national leaders and 94 accused have been arrested.