Violence broke out at the Osmania University campus in when police stopped students from staging a march with the the body of a youth who committed suicide by immolating himself apparently due to delay in formation of a separate Telangana state.
Police said at least 30 students and 15 policemen, including Kachiguda ACP K Ramchander, were injured as the premises turned into a battlefield with students throwing stones and torching police vehicles.
Police burst teargas shells and fired rubber bullets and used water cannons to disperse them. Some mediapersons were also hurt during the clashes.
The violence broke out over shifting the body of K Venugopal Reddy, a 23-year-old final-year MCA student who set himself ablaze yesterday at the university, which has been a focal point for the youth demanding Telangana.
The students planned to take out Venugopal's body in a procession towards Gun Park near Andhra Pradesh state assembly from the Arts College premises where the body was kept since yesterday. Hundreds of students gathered at the Arts College premises to pay their respects to Venugopal.
But police stopped them from taking out any procession saying it may aggrevate the situation in view of the bandh being already observed in the city in support of Telangana.
Tension prevailed after slogan-shouting students started pelting stones at police, forcing them to use water canons.
The agitating students also set three police vehicles afire near the girls hostel and Arts College in the campus.
Additional forces were deployed at the campus even as the body of Venugopal was taken away by police to Suryapet in Nalgonda district.
TRS President K Chandrasekhar Rao, his son and MLA K T Rama Rao and senior Congress MLA R Damodar Reddy, the Convener of all-party Joint Action Committee (JAC) for Telangna, condemned the police action.
Senior TRS legislator T Harish Rao demanded that Chief Minister K Rosaiah and Home Minister P Sabita Reddy withdraw security personnel from the university campus. PTI
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