AP youth forced out of hostels in Hyderabad

In gross legal violation of the compete national lockdown till April 15, on its very first day on Wednesday, thousands of people, most youth from Andhra Pradesh, were forced to leave their rooms and hostels in Hyderabad and move to the intra-state border. This unforgivable lack of foresight and planning, oblivious to both national legal norms, the global health emergency and potential human cost that defeated the very purpose of a lockdown imposed by Telangana State came to the fore in the city on Wednesday, with thousands of young people — mostly from Andhra Pradesh — forced to leave their rooms and take to the streets and scattered across the city to different police stations desperately seeking help.

The issue erupted with managements of various hostels and paying guest (PG) accommodations asking their “clients to immediately vacate” their rooms. According to managements, they were in no position to provide services to their tenants as it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to procure essential commodities to ensure other regular services.

The spectacle of and at some thousands of hundreds, locations, students, professional workers standing in clumps — small and large — and heading to some police stations in gatherings of thousands, standing cheek to jowl — prompted a late evening tweet with a tone of urgency from TRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao, urging restraint from accommodation managements and “promising all assistance”. Wednesday’s development punched a serious hole into the very purpose of the nation-wide and state-wide lockdown, with helpless students pushed to throw to wind all caution as they rushed to police stations and sought “permission letters” to travel back to their homes in Andhra Pradesh.

Thousands of youngsters — living in hostels across the city were rendered homeless by force and unprotected by police.