Centre intervenes in AP-Telangana border mess
It all started when private hostels and paying guest owners asked inmates to vacate
The Centre on Wednesday took a serious note of the Telangana government’s deliberate disobeying of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a national lockdown by evicting thousands of people away from the capital city of Hyderabad.
While two state governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh did not care much about the impending danger due to movement of masses from one place to other, the Centre’s intervention saved the day, though chaos prevailed till late in the night.
“The Telangana government acted deliberately. How can state police issue passes to people who want to travel hundreds of kilometres violating the lockdown? The tamasha, as reports obtained by us, reveal what went on the whole day,” fumed a senior official at Union ministry of home affairs.
A bureaucratic network which acted above regional lines brought the inhuman deadlock to an end, though much damage was already done.
According to official sources, a senior bureaucrat in Andhra Pradesh, sensing danger, urged his colleagues at the Centre to act as he was not sure of his own government taking up the matter with Telangana.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney spoke to her counterpart Somesh Kumar and conveyed the state’s concerns. A senior Telugu official, who was in a crucial post in Centre, alerted the MHA on the developments.
It all started in the morning when managements of private hostels and paying guest accommodations purportedly asked tenants to vacate. Their decision came after police prevented them from fetching vegetables
AGITATED YOUTH gathered on roads and later proceeded to police stations at Madhapur, SR Nagar and Kukatpally in the city after “being tipped” that they would be permitted to go to their native places. Police started issuing passes to people having their own transport.
and essential commodities to prepare food for them.
Agitated youth gathered on roads and later proceeded to police stations at Madhapur, SR Nagar and Kukatpally in the city after “being tipped” that they would be permitted to go to their native places.
The Telangana police started issuing passes to people having their own mode of transport and “assured them” that the pass would ensure a free passage till state border. Instructions were issued to all police stations enroute till the Andhra Pradesh borders not to stop these vehicles carrying passes issued by the Hyderabad and Cyberabad city police.
The city resulted in police action thousands of people gathering at police station as TV channels aired these visuals since morning.
By the time, IT minister K.T. Rama Rao was alerted of the issue and he responded through a tweet at 7.15 pm, requesting hostel managements not to evict inmates, it was way too late.
“He (KTR) would have done this in the morning itself. How can anyone expect KTR did not know about the issuance of migratory passes to people? We have information that city police acted on instructions of their top brass,” a senior Andhra Pradesh police official told
Deccan Chronicle.
Cornered over violations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announced lockdown, TS police took up eleventh hour fire-fighting, but by that time, thousands gathered at the AP borders, waiting for an entry after health checks.
Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) M. Mahender Reddy and Hyderabad city Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar issued separate statements urging tenants to stay back and asking hostel managements to not evict them. But the train had left the common capital’s station long ago.