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The meeting was coincided by a near total bandh across the Telangana region, including the state capital, called for the denial of police permission to hold a similar rally in support of the division of the state.
A tense situation prevailed in the region starting with stray incidents of stone pelting on a couple of vehicles carrying government employees to the meeting to a clash with police by the boarders of a government hostel located at the Lal Bahadur Stadium where the meeting was in progress.
A commotion was also prevailed at one of the entry points of the venue when hundreds of people started protesting on the roads as the police refused them entry citing the court orders which said only the government employees with valid passes should be allowed to attend the meeting.
The president of AP non-gazetted officers(APNGO) president A Ashok Babu, who has been spearheading the anti-bifurcation move among the government employees, owed to organise a much bigger rally in the city if the Government of India continued to pursue the process of creation of Telangana state. The government staff, teachers and the road transport corporation employees in the 13 districts outside Telangana have been taking part in the agitations ever since the Congress Working Committee(CWC) resolved to bifurcate the state in July.
"A son called Hyderabad was borne as a result of a marriage between Telangana and Seemandhra regions. Now how can we allow one region to claim complete rights over it," Ashok Babu questioned while referring to the unification of two Telugu speaking states as Andhra Pradesh in the year 1956. Speeches at the APNGO meeting centered around the city of Hyderabad.
TJAC chairman Kodandaram alleged that chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has facilitated the anti-bifurcation meeting in the city only to scuttle the ongoing process for the creation of Telangana state. "These actions will only increase the bitterness between the people of two regions which is unwarranted. On our part we will not rest until the statehood for Telangana is achieved," he said.
Barring a few incidents the day was passed off peacefully as both the pro-Telanagana and anti-bifurcation outfits repeatedly appealed for the restraint. The government deployed heavy police force in the city and on the main routes connecting the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema districts with Hyderabad and arrested pro-Telangana activists at several places in the light of the bandh call.
