Osmania University turns into police fortress as student leaders arrested

The Arts college premises of Osmania University, which was the hotbed of the Telangana agitation, turned into a police fortress with scores of police vehicles blocking all the entry points towards Arts College to prevent the Deeksha announced by various student organisations against the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) paper leak and demanding an enquiry by the sitting Judge of the High Court.

The Arts college premises of Osmania University, which was the hotbed of the Telangana agitation, turned into a police fortress with scores of police vehicles blocking all the entry points towards Arts College to prevent the Deeksha announced by various student organisations against the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) paper leak and demanding an enquiry by the sitting Judge of the High Court.

No one except the bonafide students was allowed into the Arts College premises and the police in fact, sealed all the roads leading to Osmania University from Tarnaka, Vidya Nagar and Jamai-Osmania to prevent the entry of any outsider including Telangana Congress president, A. Revanth Reddy; BJP State chief, Bandi Sanjay and the BSP State chief, R.S. Praveen Kumar, who were invited by the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (OUJAC) that called for a two-day deeksha.

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In fact, all the OUJAC leaders were picked up from various places and shifted to police stations since midnight to thwart the programme. Police said the varsity had denied permission for any protests or meetings at Arts College. The deeksha is to start at 1 p.m. on Friday and continue for two days against the leakage of question papers that subsequently led to the arrest of 12 persons so far and cancellation of four examinations.

Revanth Reddy earlier announced that he would participate in the deeksha in solidarity with lakhs of aspirants who were dejected with the leakage and seeking the government to fix the responsibility of the IT Minister, K.T. Rama Rao as it was his Ministry’s duty to provide IT security solutions to the TSPSC.

To prevent his participation, Mr. Reddy was kept under house arrest since morning as the police barricaded all the roads leading to his house in Jubilee Hills. Scores of Congress leaders including Sampath Kumar, Mallu Ravi, Shabbir Ali, Anjan Kumar Yadav, Eravatri Anil, Anil Yadav, Addanki Dayakar, Chamala Kiran Reddy were also placed under house arrest.

Protesting his house arrest, Mr. Reddy tweeted challenging KTR and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao to come for an open debate with students at Arts College if they were innocent. “If you are sincere and not involved in the scam accept my challenge.”