Osmania University campus turns violent

Osmania University turned into a war zone on Thursday with thousands of students flooding its roads pelting stones at the police,

damaging property and even attacking Telugu Desam Party (TDP) senior leaders who turned up on campus to express solidarity.

The students who had at first quietly assembled at the Arts College building at around 10 am, soon after turned violent and pelted stones at police injuring senior police officials, including DIG R S Praveen Kumar.

The students also turned their ire at TDP leaders who had come to the campus to support them at 4 pm. The worst hit was TDP MLA Nagam Janardhan Reddy who was dragged out of his vehicle and beaten for over ten minutes near OU Arts College, till a bystander came to his rescue and took him to safety on a bike.

In the melee, Nagam's gunman dropped his 9 mm pistol, which a mediaperson later handed over to the Osmania University police. It was suspected that, not having a weapon could be one of the reasons why the gunman did not open fire in the air. OU inspector Anjaiah said that they have booked a case in this regard and are yet to hand over the weapon to the gunman.

TDP leader Devender Goud, was also roughed up but he managed to escape. Other TDP leaders, Erraballi Dayakar Rao, R Revanth Reddy and Kadiyam Srihari, managed to leave unharmed.

The students broke the windshields of several vehicles, including that of media personnel's. The violence took place in spite of the police cordoning off all the entrances to the campus with barbed wires.

The scene heated up at 11.15 am when over 1,500 students tried holding rallies at the various exit points of the campus. While their move to get to Tarnaka crossroads was prevented by police, they were almost successful in getting close enough to one of the exit point on the Tarnaka stretch, near Aradhana theatre, to pelt stones at nearby shops whose shutters were already down. As the mob advanced further, police chased them back and students retaliated by pelting stones back at them. To disperse the mob police fired two rounds of tear gas shells in the air. A lathicharge followed to which the students retaliated by pelting stones further in which police personnel, including DIG R S Praveen Kumar, sustained minor injuries.

Though the situation came under control by afternoon, the scene turned volatile as members of political parties including Congress and TRS started trickling in around 1.30 pm. The students who were visibly uninterested in the political banter started booing most of the Congress leaders. The situation became worse when TDP leaders came to the campus in five vehicles and violence against them ensued.

Later, police identified two persons who attacked Janardhan Reddy as Srikanth Raju of Nalgonda and Rajeev Reddy, an advocate from city.

Meanwhile, IG, A R Anuradha warned general public about the volatile situation on OU campus and said it could turn serious anytime. Speaking at a media conference Anuradha appealed to parents to take appropriate action to restrain the students. "I also urge 'outsiders' not to enter the OU campus even though they might have good intention," she said, hinting at the presence of Joint Action Committee of High Court Lawyers who had come to the campus in the afternoon.

The university has postponed all its examinations till January 2, 2010.