Chalo Assembly results in traffic jams; disrupts production

The 'Chalo Assembly' rally held by pro-Telangana outfits in protest against the delay in carving out a Telangana state led to massive traffic jams on Friday with police erecting barricades and barbed wire fences on every road, including by-lanes, leading to the premises of the state Legislative Assembly.

Also, several people could not attend to their duties as the roads leading to their work places were blocked. Consequently, production had been hampered at many of the manufacturing clusters located in and around the state capital.

All the roads have either been completely closed or traffic diverted. Hence, we closed our manufacturing facility today, managing director of a city-based bio-diesel manufacturing company said.

Commuters had a harrowing time as it took more than two hours to travel a distance of about 5- 6 kilometre which, on a normal day, could be covered in less than half-an-hour even during peak-time traffic.

The state government is reported to have deployed over 20,000 police personnel to scuttle the rally being taken out despite imposition of prohibitory orders and denial of permission.

The government has turned Hyderabad into a police camp but has failed to stop us from achieving our goal, convenor of the Telangana Joint Action Committee, M Kodandaram, said even while police took him into custody near Indira Park.

Scores of pro-Telangana leaders belonging to different political parties, including legislators Harish Rao, E Rajender, Uma Madhav Reddy, G Kishan Reddy and N Janardhana Reddy and MPs M Jagannadham, G Vivekanand and Vijaya Shanti, were arrested at various places in the city.

In protest against the arrests and the repressive attitude of the state government, TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao has given a call for a Telangana Bandh on Saturday.

Tension mounted at the Assembly premises when two Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) legislators, D Vinay Bhaskar and K Sammaiah, scaled the building and threatened to jump if police tried to bring them down. Assembly marshals managed to bring them down after an hour-long persuasion.

Police have to lob tear gas shells to quell the protestors at Osmania University. The university campus turned into a war zone with students clashing with the police for preventing them from marching towards the Assembly .