Two-day Telangana shutdown from Tuesday

HYDERABAD - The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) Monday called for a two-day Telangana shutdown Feb 22-23 to demand a bill in parliament for separate statehood to the region.

The two-day shutdown in Hyderabad and nine other districts of the Telangana region may affect the normal life and further intensify the movement for separate state.

The shutdown may hit the transport services across the region with protesters also planning to stop the movement of buses and trucks from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.

Police have gone on high alert to prevent any untoward incident during the shutdown. Security has been further beefed up in Hyderabad, which witnessed violent protests by Osmania University students Monday.

The JAC, comprising the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other pro-Telangana groups, has called for the strike. Telangana leaders of the ruling Congress party and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) are also backing the shutdown.

The two-day strike comes even as the non-cooperation movement by government employees in the region continued for the fifth day Monday. Over 300,000 employees in government offices and state-owned units are participating in the movement.

The employees are on a pen/tool down strike to mount pressure on the central government to move a bill during the budget session of parliament for carving out a separate Telangana state.

The two-day shutdown may create more problems for the government as it is already worried over the impact of the non-cooperation movement. A group of ministers Monday held talks with employees’ leaders to persuade them to call off their protest but the government staffers stuck to their agitation.

The government is suffering huge losses every day as people are travelling on the state-owned Road Transport Corporation (RTC) buses without tickets and are also not paying taxes.