When taken to court, the judge sentenced them to seven days of jail time.
Police also arrested prominent leaders of the movement—Chenna Reddy,
Konda Lakshman, Achyuth Reddy, T. Anjaiah, and Maanik Rao—under the
Preventive Detention Act.
Ministers from Telangana, resenting the government’s tough stand
against separatists, resigned from the state cabinet. A seemingly distraught
Kasu Brahmananda Reddy announced that he was also resigning and sent his
resignation to the Congress President Nijalingappa. However, his resignation
was not accepted.
A group of Osmania Unversity students demanded reopening of the
colleges. They blocked the vice chancellor’s car as he was on his way to the
office and vented that, while the American university professors were sending
their students to the moon (referring to Neil Armstrong’s recent landing on
the moon), our professors were busy with politics and sending us into the
streets.
CM Brahmananda Reddy continued to give sops to the Telangana
region. He announced a plan to build a fertilizer factory in Ramagundam with
60 crores investment. He allocated more funds to the Pochampad Project for
its speedy completion. None of these actions could stem the violence across
the state.
Twenty-five-year-old Sriram Chandar and ten-year-old Dasthagir died
in police firing when they gate crashed into a felicitation ceremony organized
for the Home Minister Jalagam Vengal Rao in his native district of Khammam.
In another incident in Secunderabad, an eighteen-year-old Ravinder was
killed when the satyagraha movement got out of control.
On August 23, 1969, a full eight months into the movement, the tough
Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi said she would only intervene to find a
solution if the leaders for a separate state ended the agitation and peace reigned
in the state. As a conciliatory gesture to make way for the peace process, CM
Brahmananda Reddy released the TPS leaders from the jails.
Upon his release, Chenna Reddy went to Delhi for discussions and made
a statement that TPS would end the stir if the CM was changed. However, on
his return to Hyderabad, he distanced himself from the news reports and said
that the creation of a separate state was the only solution, setting September 1,
1969 as the deadline. The date came and went. Violence in the state started to
recede gradually.There were stray incidents of violence such as pelting stones
at buses.
The crescendo for the resignation of the Chief Minister Kasu
Brahmananda Reddy was building. Telangana legislators gathered 50 signatures
of their peers and planned to collect 36 more and send their petition to the
Congress Party President Nijalingappa.
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