Vijayashanti tries to enter OU campus, arrested

Senior Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader and MP Vijayashanti was on Saturday arrested by the police when she tried to enter the Osmania University campus, the hotbed of pro-Telangana agitations.

The TRS MP had arrived at the campus in the afternoon and tried to enter the campus. She was told by the police that her presence would further inflame the agitating students and asked to return.

The actress-turned-politician however refused to heed the police requests and demanded that she be allowed inside the campus.

When she refused to listen to their warning, police arrested and boarded her into a waiting van. Meanwhile, women activists of the TRS, who had accompanied the MP, squatted on the ground and raised slogans.

Speaking to media persons from the window of the van, Vijayashanti said that she was being deprived of her right to talk to protestors.

She demanded that the forces be withdrawn from the campus and students allowed to air their views freely. The TRS MP was driven away to the Trimulgherry police station, still voicing her protests.

Earlier, TRS MLA Taraka Rama Rao told media persons at the Telangana Bhavan that he feared for the safety of the students inside the Osmania University campus since it was cut off from the outside world.

KTR said that the police had affectively curbed the right of the citizens to know what was happening inside the campus, with media persons being stopped at the entrances of the University.

He said that while the police was using the Cable Regulation Act as a tool to stop media from reporting the events inside the University, the rights of the citizens and the students were being trampled upon.

The Sircilla MLA demanded that the police forces be withdrawn from the campus immediately.