Four persons have so far laid down their lives in support of the demand for separate state of Telengana. In the latest incident, a police constable jumped to his death from a cellphone tower in Nizamabad district on Monday night.
Meanwhile, violence and arson marred a 12-hour bandh called by TRS on Monday to protest the arrest of its leader K Chandrasekhar Rao, who went on a fast to press for a separate Telangana statehood, as the shutdown crippled normal life at several places across Andhra Pradesh .
However, Rao's fast which had begun on Sunday, was broken on Monday as he had fruit juice and was administered saline at a government hospital at Khammam where he was lodged in a jail after his arrest near Karimnagar, Khammam Additional SP Parimala Nutan said.
The sub-regional party made elaborate arrangements for Rao's much-publicised proposed indefinite fast at Siddipet.
The police, however, arrested him near Karimnagar even before he reached Siddipet and took him to Khammam. He was produced before a Khammam magistrate, who sent him to 14-day judicial custody. He is lodged in the sub-jail in the town.
Expressing anger over Rao's arrest, the TRS called for a shutdown in Telangana today which witnessed violent incidents at several places in the region.
'Bandh' supporters went on a rampage, attacking petrol pumps, shops and a retail store at Tarnaka in Hyderabad and state-run buses in Telangana districts like Medak, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Warangal.
The agitators attacked the residence of Christopher, an official of the state Higher Education Council, in the Osmania University (OU) campus. They damaged a car and furniture at the house.
The university in the Andhra capital, a nerve centre of the separate Telangana movement, witnessed protests by the students throughout the day.
The students demanded action against police official Stephen Ravindra, who they alleged was responsible for the "brutal" lathicharge on students in the university. The state human rights commission heard the student representatives, the university's vice-chancellor and city police commissioner over the lathicharge.
Meanwhile, bus passengers were left stranded in Hyderabad and elsewhere as Road Transport Corporation (RTC) cancelled services as a precautionary measure.
Kakatiya University at Warangal also remained tense as students held a protest in the institution.
Reports of bandh-supporters damaging RTC buses, commercial establishments and others were received from Nizamabad, Medak and other districts. TRS asserted it would step up its agitation though Rao's indefinite fast was broken.
"The state government always tried to spoil the TRS' movement. They always created hurdles and now they broke his fast. But we will continue the agitation," T Harish Rao, TRS legislator and nephew of Chandrasekhar Rao, told reporters at Khammam. PTI
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