The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Autorickshaw drivers' stir turns violent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 28, 2007
ePaper


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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Autorickshaw drivers' stir turns violent

Staff Reporter

Two autorickshaws carrying patients to a hospital partially damaged

Mild tension prevails at Khairatabad

121 auto drivers taken into custody

SOFT TARGET: The windshield of an autorickshaw, which was carrying patients to NIMS, is broken after some autorickshaw drivers allegedly pelted stones on Saturday. — Photo: Mohd. Yousuf

HYDERABAD: Mild tension prevailed as striking autorickshaw drivers, who laid siege to the Transport Commissioner's office at Khairatabad, partially damaged two autorickshaws carrying patients on Saturday.

The police took 121 drivers into preventive custody and later released them on personal bond. Members of the Anti-Auto Digital Meters Struggle Committee squatted on the Khairatabad-Punjagutta Road and raised slogans against the Government demanding withdrawal of G.O. 213 that makes installation of digital meters in autorickshaws mandatory. "We are committed to holding talks with the Transport Commissioner, but there is no response from him even after the auto bandh continued for six days," said president of the committee Mohd.Amanullah Khan, in a statement.

Attendants

Earlier, two autorickshaws shifting patients from the Osmania General Hospital to Nims were stopped by the agitating autorickshaw drivers. Despite requests from attendants of the patients to let them go, the agitators refused to budge and partially damaged the two vehicles. West Zone DCP Amit Garg got the patients shifted to the NIMS in private vehicles. Police also resorted to mild lathicharge to quell the striking drivers.

Condemning the lathicharge, Anti-Auto Digital Meters Struggle Committee General Secretary B. Venkatesam said they would further intensify the agitation and block the Vijayawada highway at L. B. Nagar on Sunday morning.

The Government on Saturday said it was ready to give one-month time for installing digital metres in auto-rickshaws. This will help the banks extend loans to drivers for buying digital metres, the Minister for Agriculture N. Raghuveera Reddy said. He held talks with leaders of the All India Trade Union Congress representing a Joint Action Committee of the striking autorickshaw unions.

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Andhra Pradesh