The posters, according to police, were signed by Telangana People’s Liberation Front, a largely unknown offshoot of the CPI (ML) Jana Shakti party, and said: “only a militant struggle could lead to Telangana state formation”, and people of Telangana should not fall for electoral games.
The poster with a red background and sketch of a person holding a rifle which has been surfacing over the past few days on the campus said: “Lobbying will not help us secure separate statehood, only war will.”
While the police suspect Maoist rebels and said they were looking for five suspects who had put up similar posters in Tarnaka about a month back, political commentators dismissed it as a gimmick and said it was highly improbable for Maoists to dare an armed strike over Telangana right now, while they were on the run in the state.
“A poster is just a poster. No one will run to the next rebel group and take up arms because of a poster,” said G Haragopal, director of Centre for Human Rights, University of Hyderabad.
Many experts said if the state government wanted to convince the central government that the protest has fallen into the hands of extremists and get New Delhi to announce something on the statehood issue, they might just have to plant such posters in the city and make a few arrests.
“The state had played several such tricks to brand student leaders and even arrest the most vocal and the most assertive of them,” Haragopal added.
On OU campus, the posters were found near Arts college and some of the boys hostels including A, B and new research scholar hostels.
OU students disowned the posters, saying none of the OU students or leaders of Joint Action Committee have printed or put up these posters. “We believe that Telangana state can be achieved through democratic struggles. We are fighting well within the constitutional rights,” said M Krishank, spokesperson, OU JAC.
Experts say the T-agitation is on the wane with the Centre failing to respect several deadlines to announce formation of Telangana to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Hectic lobbying by both Seemandhra politicians and Congress leaders from Telangana region, have not yielded any results so far, and people are largely disillusioned.
While the Telangana Rashtra Samithi has threatened to step up agitation time and again, without any success, student leaders admit that after three years of protests they have not gained anything significant.
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