Students kidnap classmates, beat them up at farewell do

Penamaluru police on Sunday booked several students of Siddhartha Engineering College in Kanuru for kidnapping and beating up three students of the same college.

Three students were booked for kidnapping and five others were booked for beating up the students over a dispute.

The dispute broke out on Saturday night when the third year students hosted a farewell party for their seniors at the Dhanekula Kalyana Mandapam. Three students, Kuchipudi Ramu, Ch. Sivendra and Kolli Haribabu went to buy flowers for the function but objected to paying Rs 40 for a bouquet at the flower stall owned by another third year student, Mallela Adiya.

An argument ensued which turned violent when Mallela Adiya allegedly beat Kuchipudi Ramu. Later, Ramu, Shivendra and Haribabu went to Adiya’s house in Kanuru and warned his father that they would lodge a police complaint against Adiya.

On Sunday, Adiya, Sasankh Bharadwaj, Swamy and five others went to Ramu’s room and allegedly beat him and the two others. They then locked Sivendra and Haribabu in the room and tried to kidnap Ramu in a car. Ramu managed to escape when the car reached NTR Circle. The Penamaluru CI, Mr N. Vijay Rao, said a kidnap case has been registered.

Chidambaram’s statement makes no impact in Osmania

Osmania University, the hotbed of Telangana agitation, was devoid of any activity even as the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s announcement on a committee for Telangana led to discussions among political circles.

Except the students sitting on the relay hunger strike in front of Arts College and a few hanging around the lawns there was no reaction from the agitating students till the evening much to the disappointment of media men.

It was only towards the evening that students gathered in groups and discussed the announcement details as media gathered there.

The non-reaction from students could be attributed to the fact that many members of students JAC are busy in the padayatra in the Telangana areas while a few others are in jail.

‘Not acceptable’

A member of the JAC, Rajesh later told The Hindu that the announcement lacked clarity and was not acceptable to students.

He said the move of Central government was against the wishes of Telangana people and all public representatives should stick to the deadline on resignations to reject Mr. Chidambaram’s announcement. He blamed the MLAs and MPs for failing to put pressure on the Central Government.

Mr. Rajesh alleged that the Government was provoking students booking attempt-to-murder cases against JAC leaders and supporters for participating in agitations.

The teachers JAC also reacted strongly on the announcement.

Gali Vinod Kumar of teachers JAC said the proposed committee should look into finalising the norms for creating Telangana rather than eliciting opinions from different sections.

He demanded that the decision should come in a time-frame acceptable to Telangana people.