A.P. violence: Controversy over role of extremists

By R.J.Rajendra Prasad

HYDERABAD, AUG. 29. The CPI (M) has announced its decision to carry the campaign against Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu's Government to other parts of the country, while the Chief Minister says he wants to make the violence the Congress and Left indulged in yesterday a ``national issue'' by showing a video cassette of the ``provocation indulged in by demonstrators'' all over the country.

Mr. Naidu gave a video cassette to the Governor, Dr C. Rangarajan yesterday and spoke to the Tamilnadu Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi this morning, urging him to see some clippings from a report telecast by the Teja Channel, which is part of the Sun TV network. Mr. Karunanidhi telephoned Mr Chandrababu Naidu later in the day, saying the ``provocation'' was indeed a fit case for national debate.

Mr. Sitaram Yechuri, a Member of the CPI (M) politburo, who visited Hyderabad and saw the activists of the Left parties injured in yesterday's incidents, says nowhere else in the country had he seen such a ``police brutality as he saw in Hyderabad''. He says the police would not have indulged in such violence on peaceful demonstrators without instructions from the political leaders. He says that the Communist Parties want to highlight this undemocratic stance of Mr. Chandrababu Naidu all over the country, who, he accused of acting at the behest of the World Bank.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu says that the video clippings of the incidents at Basheerbagh yesterday clearly show that party workers came prepared for ``violence and destruction''. His assertion that the extremist groups had infiltrated into the crowd at Basheerbagh appears to be based on Police identification of some cadres of CPI-ML (Janasakthi) active, the presence of Mr. Gaddar, the ballad singer of Jana Natya Mandali in Basheerbagh, and several activists of Progressive Organisation of Women. The Chief Minister says an extremist group killed the Minister, A. Madhava Reddy, through a land mine blast in February this year, and it had also published a list of top leaders on its hit list. ``Should Congress join such groups to cause destruction?'' he asks.

Today, senior Congress leaders, Mr M. Sathyanarayana Rao, APCC President, Mr N.Janardhana Reddy, MP and former Chief Minister and Mr K.Rosiah, PCC (I) spokesman, called on the Governor and urged him not to get carried away by Mr Chandrababu Naidu's ``one-sided version of events'' given to him through the video cassette. They said that Congress was not a party to the call by the nine Left parties for a ``Chalo Assembly'' programme, but when the Government suspended 90 Congress MLAs, it became necessary for the Congress also to give a similar call.

The demand for a judicial enquiry into yesterday's incidents was virtually rejected by the Government, because the Home Minister, Mr T.Devender Goud, who replied to the debate in the Assembly today did not mention it, as also the Chief Minister, who intervened thrice during the debate. The CPI (M) Leader, Mr B.V.Raghavulu, said that video cassettes also can be doctored, and if the video cassette with the Chief Minister was genuine one, the latter would have certainly agreed for an enquiry.

Different figures of death tolls were in circulation today. The Government said that Baluswamy, a Congress worker of Sattenapalli and Vishnuvardhan Reddy, a CITU worker from Balanagar were the two killed in Police firing. At the CPI (M) press conference today, the leaders also put the death toll at two. The Leader of the Opposition, Dr Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy, however put the death toll at four, but when someone from the Congress benches prompted him, he changed the figure to five. But only two bodies were brought to the mortuary and this figure appears to be correct.

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