Police laid a siege to Hyderabad city for 10 hours on Saturday to foil pro-Telangana students to march towards the state Assembly, throwing normal life out of gear by forcing a curfew-like situation.
Violence broke out late in the evening after a youth attempted self-immolation in Osmania University campus raising slogans for a separate Telangana state even as scores of police personnel present their were caught by surprise.
The incident sparked a fresh battle in the university campus between students and police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas shells. Students, who were seething with anger over the police action in foiling their planned Assembly march, hurled stones and torched buses in the vicinity of the university. Earlier in the day, about 100 students tried to break the heavy police cordon and run towards the Assembly but the police immediately took them into custody. Some students also attempted to break the police cordon at Public Gardens on another side of the Assembly but they too were taken thwarted by the police. In all, over 300 students, who violated prohibitory orders and tried to march towards the Assembly, were taken into preventive custody at different places, police officials said.
Some pro-Telangana activists hurled stones at the car of Osmania University Vice-Chancellor T Tirupati Rao in the campus but he was not in the vehicle, according to East Zone Deputy Superintendent of Police Mahesh Chandra Ladha. Window panes of the car were damaged in the incident. PTI
