The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of students has called for a shutdown in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday after an MCA student committed suicide on the Osmania University campus on Tuesday.
Venugopal Reddy, a student of Lalitha College of Engineering at Ghatkesar on the outskirts of the city, came to the OU campus in the early hours on Tuesday and ended his life by setting himself ablaze.
In a suicide note left by him, Reddy stated that he was disappointed by the delay in carving out a separate state for the Telangana region. He also appealed to UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, to accord separate statehood to Telangana “at least now”.
Hailing from Nalgonda district, the final year MCA student was stated to have been active in the ongoing agitation for a separate Telangana.
Following the incident, tense situation prevailed on the OU campus with students boycotting the semester examinations and staging a protest keeping Reddy’s body on the campus.
Meanwhile, pressure has been mounted on the legislators hailing from the Telangana region to press for acceptance of their resignations submitted to the state Assembly speaker.
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The JAC leaders have warned Telangana legislators belonging to various political parties that they have to face difficult situations if they did not get their resignations accepted by the Speaker.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader, Harish Rao, expressed concern that more people were likely to end their lives if the formation of a separate Telangana state was delayed.
“Posts are not important than the lives of the students,” he said indicating that the legislators from the region should prevail upon the Speaker to accept their resignations.
Convenor of JAC of political parties and pro-Telangana organisations, C Kodandaram, said students were sacrificing their lives as there was no clarity on the issue of formation of a separate Telangana state.
The all-party JAC, which has been holding relay hunger strikes for the past four days, also held an emergency meeting to review the situation in Telangana in the light of Reddy's suicide.
The Congress legislators from Telangana held a separate meeting to discuss their resignations before attending the JAC meeting.