Hyderabad: Police detained political TJAC chairman Prof. M. Kodandaram at Narapally on the city outskirts on Saturday when he was on his way to participate in the sixth phase of the Telangana martyrs yatra on Saturday afternoon.
Earlier, Prof. Kodandaram met home minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy and requested him to instruct the police not to stop the yatra, and release TJAC activists picked up at several places.
The minister reportedly assured him that he would speak to the Director General of Police. However, the police took Prof. Kodandaram into preventive custody when he was on his way to Jangaon.
Opposition parties condemned the action as undemocratic and illegal. TD working president A. Revanth Reddy said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had promised that no one would be arrested or placed in illegal detention in the new state, but the police was doing just the opposite.
Congress MLA S.A. Sampat Kumar and CPI state secretary Chada Venkata Reddy demanded the government allow Prof. Kodandaram’s yatra to proceed.
