The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Tension over unveiling of martyrs memorial

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Tension over unveiling of martyrs memorial

Staff Reporter

Prohibitory orders imposed; organisers defiant

HYDERABAD: Tension is building up at Subhashnagar on the city's outskirts, as the police refused permission for the inauguration of a martyrs memorial and clamped prohibitory orders in the Alwal police station area.

Even as some relatives and friends of martyrs started trickling in on Tuesday and urged the Government to permit unveiling of the memorial, the police threw a security blanket over the area by deploying some 500 men and officers.

People warned

Anyone violating the prohibitory orders would be taken into custody, the Alwal ACP, K. Ramesh, said. The meeting posed a threat to law and order and a pamphlet published by the memorial builders incited people against the Government, he said.

Meanwhile, the executive committee member of the Committee of Friends and Family Members of Martyrs, Padma Kumari, said they would not go back on inaugurating the memorial, "come what may."

According to her, while the Home Minister K. Jana Reddy responded favourably when the committee approached him on Monday, the Cyberabad Police Commissioner, M. Mahender Reddy, refused permission.

`Democratic right'

"Martyrs might have followed the revolutionary path. But, we are not revolutionaries. We only want to unveil a memorial which is a democratic right," said Ilamma, mother of Veera Swamy, who was killed in an encounter with the police . Padma, wife of another martyr, Gandham Kumara Swamy, of Karimnagar, charged the police with suppressing their voice by obstructing the memorial's inauguration.

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