State president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar along with several other activists of the party was arrested by the police at Bhiknoor toll gate in Kamareddy district on Friday, when they were on way to Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT, also known as IIIT) at Basar in Nirmal district.
According to the information reaching here, the convoy of BJP activists’ vehicles led by that of Mr. Sanjay was stopped by the police at the Bhiknoor toll gate and told that they were not allowed to proceed to Basar as their visit was not permitted. Mr. Sanjay argued with the police that he was going there only to learn the problems of the students agitating for the last four days demanding appointment of faculty and improvement of infrastructure.
Expressing anger at the police, Mr. Sanjay sought to know whether the students were terrorists and why power and water supply was stopped to their hostels. He also questioned the police for stopping him while he was on way to meet the students and enquire about their problems. Stating that all the students studying in IIIT belonged to poor families, he asked whether asking for basic facilities was a sin.
As the police tried to take the BJP activists along with Mr. Sanjay to waiting police vans several partymen obstructed the police and raised slogans against the State Government. However, the police forcibly took Mr. Sanjay and other BJP activists into vans and moved them to Bhiknooor police station.
Speaking to mediapersons later at Bhiknoor, Mr. Sanjay vowed to fight till all the problems of Basar IIIT were resolved and that he would surely visit the students there. Instead of resolving the problems amicably the administration was trying to provoke the students on protest by terming their problems “silly”.
When the State Government was unable to maintain one IIIT problems, how could it ask the Centre to sanction more institutions to Telangana, Mr. Sanjay questioned. Had the government responded to students’ problems, there would have been no need for them (BJP) to go to Basar, he said.
