Despite it, violence continued unabated. In Warangal, an electric parts
shop, two auto spares shops, a general store, and two hotels belonging to Kosta
people were set on fire. In addition, a trader’s store was looted and another
store of the same trader, hailing from Kosta, was burned down. Hooligans
entered a low-income neighborhood, beat up two post-graduate students
from Kosta, and threatened other residents from Kosta districts to leave. In
Kothur, two houses were set on fire. In Karimabad, mobs looted a rice mill and
burned a car and a lorry. In Nalgonda, Deputy Surveyor Sri Rangacharyulu,
hailing from the Coastal Andhra region, was set on fire with petrol, and he
died of his burn injuries. In Gajwel town, high school students processed to
the Block Development officer’s house to warn him to leave the town, as he
was a non-local. When students resorted to throwing stones, police opened
fire, and a 12-year-old 7th grade student Narasimhulu died.
Border towns on Andhra resorted to retaliation as well. From the
Andhra border town of Nandigama, many lorries filled with people and
weapons headed to attack the Telangana border town of Kodada. Police tried
to stop the vehicles. When the lorries failed to stop, they opened fire, injuring
two persons. However, a few lorries managed to get past the police barricade.
God only knows what violent acts were committed as a free flow of news was
not there.
In another example of hatred gone amok, in Nalgonda, two men went
to the house of L.D.C. Chandriah and asked him to come out. They poured
kerosene on him and set him on fire. The miscreants thought that Chandriah
was from Coastal Andhra. However, what they did not realize was that he was
from the Telangana heartland, Warangal.
Coastal Andhra people living in the Nizam Telangana region left the
towns and villages and sought the safety of their native places. Student leader
Mallikarjun announced the end of even the relay hunger strikes going on at
the Osmania University campus and said that Andhra people have a right to
live in Telangana and vice versa. People ignored all these calls. Their minds
had already been poisoned.
The living icon of the erstwhile separate Telangana movement, Konda
Lakshman, in January 1969, while condemning hate speeches, chastised the
leaders for grossly exaggerating a few stray events to incite people against
other regions. He further assured people that he would strictly implement the
all-party agreement. He announced that he was cancelling all his travel plans
and urged concerned citizens to meet him personally.
Because of unabated violence, Chief Minister Brahmananda Reddy
called the army into the state. However, the Indian Army could not control
the violence. He then requested Central Reserve Police Force (C.R.P.F.)
reinforcements, and that turned out insufficient to quell the violence as well.
He then called the police from the neighboring state of Mysore (Karnataka),
and even that had limited success. Eventually, 40 days of non-stop violence that
started on January 8, 1969, took a reprieve in late February. Taking advantage
of the situation, the government announced that it would reopen the schools.
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