Hyd evictees back ‘home’
The Telangana government seems to have “desired to send as many people as possible out of the capital city of Hyderabad” to their native places, apparently to “reduce the burden of surveillance and effective implementation of lockdown”. This is in contrast to claims of the
Hyderabad and Cyberabad city police wings that only students and working professionals evicted from hostels were allowed to return. Though the exercise of issuing one-time lockdown exemption passes started on Wednesday with students and inmates of paying guest hostels, it soon turned into a free-forall within no time. Deccan Chronicle has documentary evidence to show that Hyderabad police did not bother to check beyond a point if a person seeking a pass was a student or a tenant of any hostel. They issued several passes to a person and did not even insist on mode of transport nor noted down their whereabouts.
With the situation turning grim, the top police officials in Telangana told media that passes were originally issued to hostel residents to fetch food and other essential commodities but they were misused.
T. Rama Rao (name changed), a resident of Konaseema region of east Godavari district, approached the Hyderabad police on Wednesday claiming that he wanted to reach his native place along with his family. He was issued a pass without being asked a single question.
He obtained another pass stating that his cousin also wanted to leave city and police obliged and issued a second pass also.
The second pass did not contain number of the vehicle to be used by pass holders.
With the situation turning grim, the top police officials in Telangana told media that passes were originally issued to hostel residents to fetch food and other essential commodities but they were misused.
This claim is factually incorrect because the pass issued to people clearly mentions that its purpose was to allow the pass holder to move out of the city.
“He requested for permission to leave to his/her native place in view of Covid 2019 situation. Hence, there is no objection to leave to his/her native place,” reads the certificate issued by the Hyderabad city police.
Mr Rao’s family had to undergo severe hardships during the last 24 hours. They started thinking about how they would quickly reach their native place and meet their beloved ones but were caught in a traffic jam for at least a 20 to 30 kms stretch before the Andhra Pradesh border.
Along with them were two small children below the age of 10 years. They waited on the road for the entire night. The next day also they could not make it up to the Andhra border.
Women passengers had a tough time attending to nature calls and had to sneak into the neighbouring bushes. With great difficulty, they managed to get a water can and some snacks.
They returned and tried out another border near the Guntur district, but there too, the roads were blocked.
Finally, they returned to Hyderabad.