Hyderabad: Congress leaders attempt to barge into CM's house foiled

Hyderabad: Telangana Congress leaders have put the police on tenterhooks at the busy Begumpet on Monday morning. On a call given by the Congress to lay siege to Pragathi Bhavan on RTC issue, steady stream of Congress leaders reached the Pragathi Bhavan to lodge their protest against the government's callousness in resolving the RTC workers demands. As a result, vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt for more than two hours.

Additional police personnel were deployed at the bhavan located at Begumpet and the nearby Metro station was also closed for a while. As a result, commuters had to face problems to reach their destinations in the office hours in the morning on Monday.

Police tried in vain to arrest TPCC president A Revanth Reddy at the latter's residence, but he managed to reach the bhavan. He arrived on a bike and tried to enter the high-security zone. Alerted police took him into preventive custody and sent to the nearby police station. Earlier, Congress senior leader Anjan Kumar Yadav and Telangana Youth Congress President Anil Kumar Yadav were also arrested.

On a tip-off, police kept senior leaders Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Mohammed Ali Shabbir, P Prabhakar, Ponnala Lakshmaiah and S Satyanarayana under house arrest till evening. They were supposed to take out rally to Pragathi Bhavan and stage a dharna against chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao. The Congress leaders in the districts were also arrested when they tried to come to Hyderabad. Many leaders were also placed under house arrest all day.