Long live Telangana !!

Student's suicide in OU puts Telangana on the boil again

Telangana is on the boil once again after the suspected suicide of an MCA student on the Osmania University campus.Hundreds of angry OU students called for a bandh on Wednesday and demanded the resignations of all elected representatives from the region in order to give momentum to the separate state movement.

By Tuesday night, the OU students placed the body of their mate outside Arts College and vowed not to allow it to be taken from there until all the MPs and MLAs quit their posts.


In response to the students’ demand, five MLAs from TRS and one from PRP went to Speaker N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s residence in the evening and pressed for the acceptance of their resignations. But with the Speaker telling them that he would take a decision in two to three days, they staged a dharna. They were later arrested and released by the police .

TDP MLA E Dayakar Rao said all the 39 party MLAs from the region would do the same on Wednesday. While BJP and two MLAs from PRP said they would also follow suit, the heat is on the Congress MLAs and MPs, who have two options: Either obey the diktat of their high command not to press for the acceptance of their resignations or face the wrath of the Telangana people.

What triggered the day’s developments was the discovery of a totally charred body of K Venugopal Reddy under a tree near Tagore Auditorium on the OU campus by morning walkers. Reddy, a 23-year-old MCA final-year student of Lalitha PG and Degree College in Ghatkesar, hailed from Nalgonda district and used to stay at Nacharam.

Venugopal was last seen studying with his friends at the Landscape Gardens in the university on Monday evening. “I left the place around that time and Venugopal had told me that he would shortly go home,” said the victim’s friend Ravinder. Earlier, Venugopal had called his brother Srinivas and told him that he was at the OU campus and would reach home a little late. The last conversation which the brothers had was at 5.10 pm after which Venugopal’s phone was switched off. The police found a suicide note under Venugopal’s bag and his cell phone. The note said: “Jai Telangana. Telangana radu ani chanipothunna. Sonia Gandhi, Telangana ivvamma (I am killing myself because Telangana is not happening. Sonia should immediately grant a separate state).

Srinivas told TOI that the handwriting in the suicide note was indeed that of his brother’s. The police registered a case under Section 174 of the CrPC (suspicious death). The sleuths at the spot said there were no signs of struggle at the place where the body was found. An burnt water bottle was found nearby. All evidence points to suicide, said both doctors and police.

The victim’s brother Srinivas as well as his classmates, Santosh and Praveen, told TOI that Venugopal was very agitated over the Telangana issue. “He was part of the student group that protested outside the vice chancellor’s office on Monday morning demanding postponement of exams. When the authorities refused to do so, he said the movement would be hit if the exams were allowed to be conducted as per schedule,” they said.

After the body was found in the morning, OU authorities cancelled the examinations scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. However, the exams scheduled for Thursday onwards would take place, they said.

Agitated students, meanwhile, gathered at the spot where Venugopal’s body was found and did not allow it to be removed from there demanding that all the Telangana MLAs and MPs press for the acceptance of their resignations. This demand forced the Telangana JAC to hold an emergency meeting, after which they went to the OU campus and assured the students that the resignation spree would begin immediately.
A post-mortem on the victim was conducted at the spot after which the students took the body and placed it outside Arts College.

While the JAC of OU students called for a two-day shutdown, the Telangana political parties’ JAC convenor M Kodandaram said there would be only one-day bandh on Wednesday. By nightfall, long queues of vehicles began to form outside petrol pumps across the region.

Meanwhile, APSRTC cancelled all its long-distance bus services in Telangana by Tuesday night itself in view of the bandh.