The D-Day has arrived and Hyderabad is on the edge. APNGOs have made arrangements for their Saturday’s public meeting, christened Save Andhra Pradesh, at the LB Stadium here. And, the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC)’s call for a bandh across Telangana came into force Friday midnight.
Police are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the day passes off peacefully. They will be deploying 45 platoons of APSP and 11 companies of paramilitary forces, meant for Ganesh festival bandobust, for this purpose.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma has appealed to the people to exercise restraint. The APNGOs meeting will be held between 2 p.m and 5 p.m. It is more than likely that normal life will be paralysed. Though APSRTC and SC Railway have not announced suspension of services, they may do so if the situation turns violent.
Earlier, the High Court refused to revoke permission granted to the APNGOs to hold the meeting. Tension was palpable at the LB Stadium on Friday. “The meeting is not against Telangana. The meeting is intended to explain to the employees the disadvantages of state’s division and the advantages, if it remains united,” APNGOs’ president P Ashok Babu said.
Even as the APNGOs were busy making preparations for the meeting, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) state committee members and those of the city committee met at the Telangana Bhavan and made their own preparations to enforce TJAC’s bandh call in the city. Said TRS leader Nayani Narasimha Reddy, “We would not have objected if only Seemandhra employees living in Hyderabad had organised the meeting. The organisers gave a call for at least one employee from each house in Andhra and Rayalaseema to attend the meeting. We object to this as it is clearly intended to provoke us.”
Not to lag behind, Osmania Students’ Joint Action Committee is also making plans to hoodwink the police and take out a rally from Gun Park to the Nizam College.
