Andhra govt withdraws all cases against students

Dec 29, 2010 |

Hyderabad

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Ahead of the Srikrishna Commission report on Telangana, Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday 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 protesters 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.

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