The premises of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly turned into a fortress on Saturday. While a large contingent of police and paramilitary forces guarded the building,barricades all over the area prevented the agitating students from Osmania University and the Telangana Students Joint Action Committee from taking their rallies to the Assembly. A number of students,who violated prohibitory orders and tried to march towards the Assembly to disrupt the ongoing Budget Session in support of separate Telangana state,were taken into preventive custody. Protests followed all over the city after the agitating students failed to break through the police cordons and barricades. S Yadavaiah,a class XII student of Noble City College,tried to immolate himself outside the Osmania University in protest against the delay in formation of Telangana state. The boy suffered serious burn injuries and was admitted to Gandhi hospital. The incident triggered more protests as hundreds of students tried to break the police barricades around the campus and clashed with them. When the students could not go out of the campus,they took out protest rallies inside. To spread panic,some students allegedly called up police control room and informed of a bomb in a train. Several long-distance trains were stopped at Warangal and were allowed to leave only after the Railway Police and Bomb Disposal Squad checked the trains thoroughly. However,officials later clarified that they wanted to prevent students of Kakatiya University,Warangal,from coming to Hyderabad and that is why they stopped all the trains. For the first time since the agitation started,protesting students turned against the Osmania University on Saturday. Students pelted stones at the official car of OU Vice-Chancellor Tirupathi Rao when he tried to talk to them. Till now,students had not damaged anything on the university campus. Leaving nothing to chance,the security forces had on Friday midnight itself turned the Assembly premises and 3 km radius area around it into a fortress. All access points to the Assembly were blocked and traffic restrictions were imposed in the area. This resulted in massive traffic jams in the morning. Over 12,000 personnel were deployed to keep the situation under control. Local train services were also suspended as two stations were shut down for the day as a precautionary measure.
