Whilst the protests made chaotic turmoil won in the train station in Tuni and also the activists beat police employees up.
Advertisement
The agitating youths also pulled the cameras of the media persons and damaged them when they were recording the developments. However, no passenger was injured in the incident as they had alighted from the train before it was set on fire. However, passengers are safe.
He says the protesters belonging to the lower-caste Kapu community blocked a national highway and disrupted train service by sitting on railroad tracks.
He said the protestors who gathered at Tuni to attend a public meeting addressed by their leader and ex-minister Mudragada Padmanabh, started pelting stones at the train and attacked some police personnel, before ransacking the railway station. While he gave six Kapus important cabinet portfolios including Home (N Chinna Rajappa), he did not go beyond setting up a commission on the reservation issue. The police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd.
Additional police forces have rushed to the spot.
The reason for the protest was The Andhra Pradesh government announced inclusion of Kapu community under Backward Classes category and set up of a panel to study the proportion of reservation to be granted to them.
“If the State government fails to take any positive decision on Kapu reservations issue by Monday evening, then Padmanabham will begin indefinite fast programme to further exert pressure on the government to accord BC status to Kapus”, a Kapu leader told The New Indian Express.
Naidu said he is reviewing (the situation) with the officials.
Advertisement
The community, comprising 23.4 per cent of Andhra Pradesh’s coastal population, claimed it had been de-reserved as a Backward Class in 1960, and demanded the return of its quota benefits. According to a senior police officer from East Godavari district, the situation was under control and peaceful and additional forces have been deployed to maintain law and order. Let the CM realise the gravity of the situation. Though the traffic on the national highway has been restored several trains between Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada were either running late or cancelled as a fall out of the incident.
