Andhra govt withdraws all cases agains students

TELANGANA STRIKE

Hyderabad, Dec. 28 (PTI) Ahead of the Srikrishna
Commission report on Telangana, Andhra Pradesh government
Tuesday announced it would withdraw all cases against
pro-Telangana students, after which Congress MPs from the
region withdrew their fast called to press for the withdrawal.
Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy told reporters here
that the government has decided to withdraw all cases against
the students and other protestors in accordance with the
request made by all political parties in the state Assembly
during its winter session.
"This is also intended to establish peace in the state,"
the Home Minister said emerging from a high-level meeting with
Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and later with a group of
ministers from Telangana.
The announcement came just 30 hours after the Congress
MPs from the region launched an indefinite hunger-strike
demanding for withdrawal of the cases.
Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police K Aravinda Rao
and senior law officers of the government were consulted
before taking the decision, the Home Minister said.
"Now, we have decided to lift all the other cases as well
after taking legal opinion," she added.
What surprised everyone was the haste with which the
Kiran Kumar Reddy decided to withdraw all the cases in one go
after earlier rejecting the political parties’ plea on the
ground that the move could lead to legal complications.
The issue relating to the cases had rocked the winter
session of the state Assembly with Telangana Rashtra Samiti
disrupting proceedings for three days. The Congress
government had then refused to accept the demand for
unconditional withdrawal of all cases despite its own members
joining hands with opposition parties.
The hunger-strike was a desperate move, according to the
MPs’ own admission, to win back confidence of Telangana people
in Congress as TRS was seen as hijacking the statehood
movement.
Sources close to the Chief Minister said he finally
agreed to take back all the cases – non-serious and grave –
after a top AICC leader intervened. PTI DVB
PBL



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