Cops foil beef fest at OU

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police on Thursday foiled the attempt of students’ unions to hold a beef and pork festival in Osmania University and arrested as many as 330 persons including members from students’ unions, workers of BJP, Bajrang Dal and Gau Raksha Dal and supporters from various organisations.

The police had thrown a thick security blanket around the campus and had several intelligence men closely monitoring the moves of the students in the OU hostels to foil the attempt. While preventive arrests started from Wednesday night, Octopus and rapid action forces were also pressed into service on Thursday morning. No one was allowed in to the university campus without valid ID proof. Even media was kept at bay and couple of them including a news reporter of an English daily and a photographer who managed to go up to the hostels were roughed up.

Amidst this scenario, the students who vowed to go ahead with the beef and pork festival had to confine themselves to the hostel rooms where they ate cooked beef and pork which they had managed to bring in from outside. They claimed that they were successful in holding the festival at least partially. The photographs of the students eating beef and pork went viral on news channels.

Taking note of it, the university authorities said that they would examine as to what action needs to be taken against them. The police said that if need be they may even arrest them. Some unidentified persons pelted stones on a RTC bus carrying passengers on Shivam road. However nobody was injured.

According to police they had arrested members of student unions from East Zone (165), West Zone (117), Central Zone (24), North Zone (22) and South Zone (2) and shifted them to Kanchanbagh, Afzal Gunj, Amberpet, Saifabad, SR Nagar, Bollaram, Begumpet and Lalaguda police stations.

The police also arrested former professor of OU, PL Vishweshwar Rao, who reached the campus to support the beef festival.

The police also arrested Goshamahal MLA T Raja Singh from his house in Mangalhat to prevent him from taking out a rally from Indira Park to OU. He had said that they would stop the student unions from celebrating the ‘flesh festivals’ in the campus.

East Zone DCP A Ravinder said “We successfully stopped them from organising the festival on the campus. We have taken a few people into custody. They will be released soon.”

Meanwhile, Swami Paripurnananda peformed Gau Puja at Gowshala in lower Tankbund. He condemned the celebration of beef festival and suggested the government to give one cow to each farmer which will help them in farming.