Osmania University turns into battlefield

Osmania University turns into battlefield

Staff Reporter
Pro-Telangana students barge into Group I exam centre; police lathicharge stone-pelting mobs
Massive police contingents and barbed wire fencing at the centre

Protestors run out carrying question papers, burn them on the road

— PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

Chaotic situation: Pro-Telangana students removing the barricades erected by the police at B.Ed college centre in Osmania University on Sunday where APPSC exam was being conducted.
HYDERABAD: Pro-Telangana students disrupted the Group I preliminary exam at a centre on Osmania University campus by barging inside on Sunday, while similar attempts were thwarted by police at other places in the State capital leading to arrest of many, including public representatives.

The bandh called by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti on Sunday opposing conduct of the exam evoked little response, but protestors attacked RTC buses and commercial complexes at different locations.

Tense moments

Tension gripped the exam centre — Institute of Advanced Study in Education (IASE) — on Tarnaka side of OU campus with some protestors snatching question papers and burning them. Police had to lob tear gas shells as a lathi-charge failed to disperse stone-pelting mobs.

Activists of Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) were the first to try to storm the centre 30 minutes before the exam, notwithstanding the presence of massive police contingents and barbed wire fencing at the centre.

They were stopped, bundled into vehicles and sent away. But, streams of students from different directions repeatedly tried to force their way in only to be whisked away by the police.

The see-saw clash continued when a batch of protestors came from English and Foreign Languages University side taking police off guard.

They pulled the barbed wire fencing and jumped over the IASE compound wall. Smashing the window with a boulder, they entered the exam hall and snatched question papers forcing the panic stricken candidates to walk out. Some candidates taking the exam too joined them.

“Is this the way to conduct Group-I exam? How can I write it with stones being hurled at me,” a candidate vented his anger at the police. The protestors ran out carrying question papers and answer sheets, tore and burnt them on the road. One of them, Ehwar, fell unconscious as he was thrashed by police.

Meanwhile, groups of students swelled outside and started hurling stones at the police forcing the latter to use tear gas shell to disperse them.

The Congress MPs, G. Sukhender Reddy, Madhu Yashki, M. Jagannadham, G. Vivek and K. Rajgopal Reddy, TRS and BJP MLAs, E. Rajender and Laxminarayana were taken into preventive custody near EFLU.

The area continued to be tense for some time with woman activists of the Progressive Democratic Students Union staging sit-in before the EFLU condemning the lathi-charge while others observed protests at the Arts College.