Two persons were killed when police opened fire on Opposition demonstrators protesting against the power tariff hike in Hyderabad today, while the 40-odd Congress MLAs who had been on a fast for the past 11 days called it off saying that the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, did not respond to “Gandhian method of protest”. - HYDERABAD, AUG. 28-2000.
The two killed were identified as Balaswamy and Kiran Chandra. The Opposition gave a call for a State-wide bandh for Tuesday to protest against the police firing.
Activists of the Congress, CPI(M), CPI and several other Left parties gathered near the Jagjivan Ram statue in Basheerbagh here this morning, about one km from the State Assembly buildings.
The Left party activists, led by Mr. B.V. Raghavulu of CPI(M) and Mr. S. Sudhakara Reddy of CPI, defied prohibitory orders and tried to break the police cordon to go towards the Assembly. Police tried to push them back and resorted to firing intermittently for about 45 minutes. Mounted policemen attempted to disperse the crowd, but the demonstrators regrouped and pelted stones at policemen and set police vehicles on fire. Soon more policemen were brought in.
Mr. Chandrababu Naidu blamed the “extremist elements” for the violence and criticised the Congress(I) for “allowing itself to be led into an alliance” with Marxist- Leninist groups. He said today’s events showed that tomorrow’s bandh would be violent.
`Firing undemocratic’
The Andhra Pradesh Congress(I) Committee president, Mr. M. Sathyanarayana Rao, described the police firing as “completely undemocratic”, and against “genuine people’s protest”. Mr. Raghavulu said Mr. Chandrababu Naidu was “making a mistake, if he thinks of suppressing a people’s movement through gun power”. He said that from now on, the “people themselves will decide the form of agitation”. Mr. Sudhakara Reddy (CPI) said that the “police response was brutal, instead of indulging in a lathicharge, teargas, water cannon, they straightaway resorted to firing on peaceful demonstrators, aiming at their heads instead of below the knee as required”.
Yechuri coming
The CPI(M) politburo member, Mr. Sitaram Yechuri, is arriving here tomorrow to study the situation as a party observer.
Today’s events were telecast by the SitiCable and Teja TV channels, which showed protestors running helter skelter and a constable taking aim to shoot at passersby on the flyover and another constable restraining him from doing so.
In Cuddapah, the Superintendent of Police went to the SitiCable office and forced them to cancel the telecast. Congress(I) leaders staged a demonstration to protest this.
Just as the Congress(I) MLAs were calling off their fast, protestors set fire to an RTC bus in front of the old MLA Quarters. Police entered the quarters and lathicharged the Congress(I) supporters, in the process damaging about 30 cars, including those of the Leader of Opposition, Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and MLAs, Ms. Galla Aruna and Ponnala Lakshmiah.
The 26 Congress MLAs who attended the Assembly disrupted the proceedings demanding a rollback of the power tariff hike, but Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, and the Home Minister, Mr. T. Devender Goud, replied to the debate amid the din.
Huge discharges into Godavari
Though there was no rain in the State today, a heavy rainfall of 40 cms in two days in Maharashtra has caused huge discharges into the Godavari. The water level at Bhadrachalam, which was 51.4 feet at 5 p.m. today, is expected to go up to 63 feet by Wednesday morning, and the discharge at Dowleswaram in Rajahmundry will be around 35 lakh cusecs, the level it reached in August, 1986, because of the confluence of Sabari downstream of Bhadrachalam. Officials however, assured that the situation was being closely monitored, and there would be no cause for panic.
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