Hyderabad is spending a tense day as the state government and the police are battling a spirited opposition led by Telangana Rashtra Samiti in its bid to organise a ‘Chalo Assembly’ rally. Hundreds of leaders and pro-Telangana activists were being detained at several places even as the city resembled a war zone since this morning. The police, however, have been successful in thwarting every attempt that was made to take out a rally upto the state assembly.

The Telangana Joint Action Ccommitee, a group of political parties supporting the region’s call for separate statehood, had announced the ‘Chalo Assembly’ rally to protest the UPA’s flip-flop attitude on the Telangana demand.

The police threw a multi-layered security net around the assembly premises and at every strategic location in the city on Thursday itself. They braced for the widely-anticipated trouble right from early morning. As expected, the open defiance of the curb orders on the rally began with the TRS and BJP MLAs, who squatted on the premises of the assembly.

They remained unrelenting even after the House was adjourned at 10.45 am. Tension prevailed for more than two hours when two of TRS legislators, Kaveti Sammaiah and Vinay Bhaskar, staged a building-top protest demanding a favourable decision on Telangana.

The police, who exercised restraint until the House was adjourned, soon swung into action and forcibly evicted the TRS and BJP MLAs. They were shifted to the Goshamahal police station. This prompted a parallel protest later by the TDP legislators who were also eventually arrested.