Hyderabad:
Defying prohibitory orders, thousands of pro-Telangana activists marched to the Tank Bund road in Hyderabad on Thursday to assemble for what was popularised as the Million March.
Taking out the protest march, the protesters removed barricades, barbed wire fencing and clashed with the police and tried to break through barricades on the nearly three-km-long Tank Bund on the banks of Hussain Sagar Lake.
'Jai Telangana' slogans, songs and drum-beats hailing Telangana reverberated on the Tank Bund road. The Telangana supporters, including TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao and senior BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya, took a pledge to work for separate Telangana.
Central Hyderabad was virtually under siege due to the protest march. Traffic diversions and restrictions threw life out of gear in the city as office-goers had a tough time reaching their destinations especially in the morning hours. Shops and other commercial establishments remained closed especially on the roads near the State Secretariat and Legislative Assembly.
But the timings of the march, which was originally meant to be a day-long show of strength, were changed from 1-4 pm in the afternoon, ostensibly due to school examinations. (
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"Hyderabad city police will not be in a position to allow this programme to go on," said A K Khan, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad.
The grand plan had been for some 10 lakh people to assemble here.
These Telangana protesters managed to come on to Tank Bund despite many activists taken into preventive custody in different districts of the region since Wednesday and the entire central zone of Hyderabad around Tank Bund declared a no-man zone for all of Thursday.
Though the number of protesters was estimated to be less than 15,000 by the police, the rampage they created by the Hussainsagar Lake was a big embarrassment for a government that had refused permission to the event.
"Despite so many arrests and police restrictions, thousands of people have marched ahead to Tank Bund. This is a clear indication how deep-rooted the aspirations of the people of Telangana are for state formation," TRS leader Shravan Kumar said.
Telangana Congress leaders Kesava Rao and Madhu Yaski Goud faced the ire of Telangana activists who demanded nothing short of their resignation as MP. (
Read: Chappals thrown at MPs)
"I know the mood of the people so I have no grievance. It is the responsibility of the government of the day, the ruling party, to sort it out and not test the patience," said Kesava Rao.
Goud said a wrong impression has been created among Telangana supporters that a Constitutional crisis triggered by resignations of leaders would pave way for formation of separate Telangana. The attack could have been done by such people who believed so, he said.
Also targetted were statues of prominent personalities from coastal Andhra Pradesh that adorn Tank Bund.
(With PTI inputs)