State-wide bandh on special category status to Andhra Pradesh begins

VIJAYWADA: The day-long state-wide bandh called by YSR Congress over the special category status issue for Andhra Pradesh began today with party workers and leaders staging protests in front of bus deports belonging to the State Road Transport Organisation (APSRTC).

As precautionary measure, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada city police have taken over 250 persons into preventive custody.

YSR Congress president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has appealed to people to make the bandh a success.

Most of the important leaders were either taken into preventive custody or kept in "house arrest", a senior YSRCP leader alleged.

"Keeping in view the seriousness of the situation, we temporarily stopped plying buses in sensitive routes," a senior official of APSRTC said.

The bandh-call was supported by Left parties and other civil society organisations.

In Visakhapatnam, as many as 200 people were taken into preventive custody.

"No untoward incident has been reported so far. Most of the buses are plying normally," Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police Amit Garg told PTI.

A senior police official of Vijayawada said about 60 leaders and workers of YSRCP have been taken under custody.

In a press release issued yesterday, Goutam Sawang, Police commissioner of Vijayawada warned the people not to indulge in violence or create problems for passengers, failing which severe action would be taken.

Buses plying to Tirumala were exempted from the bandh.