Vijayawada: The day-long state-wide bandh called by YSR Congress over the special category status issue for Andhra Pradesh began on Saturday with party workers and leaders staging protests in front of bus deports belonging to the State Road Transport Organisation (APSRTC).
As precautionary measure, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada city police have taken over 250 people into preventive custody.
YSR Congress president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has appealed to people to make the bandh a success.
Most of the important leaders were either taken into preventive custody or kept in "house arrest", a senior YSRCP leader alleged.
"Keeping in view the seriousness of the situation, we temporarily stopped plying buses in sensitive routes," a senior official of APSRTC said.
The bandh-call was supported by Left parties and other civil society organisations.
In Visakhapatnam, as many as 200 people were taken into preventive custody.
Vizag:YSRCP calls for state-wide bandh in Andhra over demand of special status to state,protesters detained by police pic.twitter.com/np8mHZbAN9
— ANI (@ANI_news) August 29, 2015"No untoward incident has been reported so far. Most of the buses are plying normally," Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police Amit Garg said.
A senior police official of Vijayawada said about 60 leaders and workers of YSRCP have been taken under custody. In a press release issued on Friday, Goutam Sawang,
Police commissioner of Vijayawada warned the people not to indulge in violence or create problems for passengers, failing which severe action would be taken. Buses plying to Tirumala were exempted from the bandh.
