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Leaders in Disguise Sneak Into Osmania

Even as elected representatives and political party leaders failed to enter the fortified Osmania University campus to express solidarity with the fasting students, BJP senior leader Bandaru Dattatreya and TRS legislature party leader E Rajender managed to hoodwink the police on Wednesday and enter the campus on the third day of the students’ fast-unto-death for separate Telangana. But Dattatreya was arrested on his way out of the campus and a case was slapped against him for trespassing.

Meanwhile, four students were shifted to the Gandhi hospital as their health condition deteriorated.

With the police allowing only students and staff of the University into the campus, Dattatreya entered the campus through a narrow opening in the compound wall near the masjid on the Tarnaka side and leading to the old PG hostel.

Though police personnel had been stationed there, they were unable to recognise Dattatreya who was in a disguise. The senior politician was dressed like a professor in a suit and had covered his hair and face with a cloth enabling him to walk past them and reach the Arts College.

Addressing the hunger strike camp, Dattatreya demanded the withdrawal of police forces from the campus. He deplored that the OU vice-chancellor has not visited the hunger strike camp since the past three days.

Dattatreya was later arrested at Tarnaka while on his way out of the campus. A case under section 377 (trespass) was registered against him for violating prohibitory orders. He was shifted to the Kanchanbagh police station and later let off.

At night around 7.30 p.m, Rajender, clad in a T-shirt and jeans managed to enter the campus from the Habsiguda side. He held discussions with the fasting students and the OUJAC leaders for nearly one-and-half hours appealing them to call off their fast but in vain.

“We will take a decision in a day or two,” OUJAC spokesperson P Kailash said.

Police, on the other hand, got a hint of Rajender’s likely visit to the campus and intensified vigil in and around the campus but could not lay their hands on the TRS leader.

Earlier in the day, TRS leader Karne Prabhakar and Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) leader entered the campus, reportedly in a media vehicle, and visited the hunger strike camp. But CPI MLA Gunda Mallesh and former MLA Chada Venkat Reddy did not make it to OU and were taken into preventive custody at Tarnaka.

Meanwhile, four fasting students – Vasudev Reddy, Uma Shankar and Raj Reddy of Kakatiya University and Nehru Naik of Osmania University, were on Wednesday shifted to the Gandhi hospital after their health condition deteriorated. Doctors, said that some of them were suffering from fever and other complications.

With incessant rains since early morning, the hunger strike camp was shifted inside the Arts College.

TDP rebel leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy is likely to visit the campus on Thursday. He reportedly sought permission of senior police officers to enter OU

[Express News Service]

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