Hundreds of slogan-shouting students broke the barricades on the campus and pelted stone at the police who retaliated by firing tear-gas shells while some students were also taken into preventive custody.
Pro-Telangana activists wanted to be allowed to take out a rally to join the ‘Telangana March’, but the government had on Saturday denied them permission to carry out any rally from the varsity.
The agitators also decided to stay put on Necklace Road, a day ahead of the XI Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity.
Apparently, the government’s strategy of allowing the march at a pre-designated place from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. backfired with Telangana leaders making it clear that they would not leave the place until they got an announcement on the road map for formation of the separate State.
Para-military forces were seen moving into the campus to bring the situation under control even as Telangana activists alleged that the police showed high-handedness by taking them into the custody.
About 20 vehicles of the police and two belonging to TV channels were either burnt or damaged in the clash which saw the forces and the crowds going back and forth in the lobbing of teargas shells and stone-throwing.
A railway cabin straddling the track near the Necklace Road station was also burnt as also a mobile power unit and a static power junction.
The forces lobbed scores of teargas shells, both in the conflict zone and later when the crowds withdrew at nightfall. The second spell of shelling was apparently a warning to the crowds to disperse as the time allotted for the march had expired.
But, a few thousand people squatted in front of the stage as Telangana Joint Action Committee chairman M. Kodandaram and MLAs Nagam Janardhan Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, S. Venugopalachary and others gave a call for a sit-in until the Ministers from Telangana districts arrived to resolve the problem.