In a press conference, the city police commissioner, A K Khan, today cautioned (read: warned) students from districts of Telangana to stay away from the city tomorrow, referring to the
Chalo Assembly call given by the Osmania University students' JAC for February 20 aiming to lay siege to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
He said that Chalo Assembly was illegal, and that the students would get caught in unnecessary cases if they turned up and participated. He said that the police had made adequate arrangements to deal with all eventualities, and requested people to co-operate with the police so that traffic moved smoothly.
In a show of protest against the attacks on journalists at the Osmania University campus on the 15th of Febraury, journalists attending the press conference by the Commissioner, all sat on the bare floor. Journos across the city have generally been making a ruckus about the brutal attacks on some journalists who had gone to cover the events at the OU campus on the 15th. The journalists' union has also decided to cancel live telecast of the assembly proceedings tomorrow in protest against those attacks.
Meanwhile, the Chalo Assembly campaign has been supported by sundry Telangana bodies, and also the Telugu Desam Telangana legislators Nagam Janardhan Reddy and Motkupalli Narasimhulu, who asked for it to be conducted peacefully, and requested the CM to keep the police at bay. The Congress Telangana representatives have, however, asked students to drop out of it. The CM Rosaiah too has cautioned students to stay away, saying that the government was trying to be sensitive to their futures.