Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur   

CPI(M) bid to stage 36-hour protest foiled

Staff Reporter

Party activists prevented from reaching collectorate

ANANTAPUR: The police foiled the bid of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to lay siege to the collectorate for 36 hours here on Tuesday by preventing the activists from reaching the place. They were bodily lifted by the police midway.

Acting on specific orders, the police, present in large numbers, also detained at different places in the district hundreds of activists who were on way to Anantapur to participate in the protest, demanding house sites to all eligible poor.

The activists were detained at Gooty, Rayadurg, Guntakal, Hindupur, Kadiri, Dharamavaram, Gorantla, Pamidi, Kuderu, Amadaguru, Obuladevara Cheruvu and in the outskirts of Anantapur. A large number of them were taken into custody.

Led by district secretary G. Obulakonda Reddy, leaders V. Rambhupal, M. Imtiaz, K.A. Ratnaiah and others went in a procession from the party office to the collectorate. The police initially thought of halting the procession in Suryanagar road itself, but stopped short of implementing the plan due to the presence of a large gathering of onlookers.

Barrier

Later, civil and armed reserve police led by Anantapur DSP G.S. Karunakar stood as a barrier at the JNTU Oil Technological Research Institute, about 100 metres away from the collectorate, and stopped the CPI (M) procession.

After a bout of arguments, the police forcibly lifted about 100 party leaders and activists, including women, and moved them into five waiting police vans to Singanamala police station.

Some policemen rudely threw drinking water stored in half-a-dozen drums on the road. A few women and children were found searching for water in the floored drums later. The police also pulled down tents erected in front of the collectorate.

The party activists staged a rasta roko in the Tower Clock circle later condemning the "undemocratic attitude" of the police. CPI leaders K. Ramakrishna and M.V. Ramana condemned the Government for denying the CPI (M) its democratic right to protest and ask for house sites for the poor.

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