New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday slammed
Andhra Pradesh government for deploying elite anti-Naxalite
police force in Osmania University campus to cope with
students' unrest over Telangana statehood row and wanted to
know under whose authority the decision was taken.
The apex court directed the State Home Secretary to
explain in an affidavit the reasons for deploying the
'Greyhounds' and a status report on the prevailing atmosphere
in the Osmania University campus, the hotbed of the separate
Statehood agitation.
"Tell us why the Greyhounds have been deployed. What is
the reason we want to know," the bench said and asked senior
counsel Mukul Rohtagi the very purpose for which the
Greyhounds was constituted.
Rohtagi said Greyhounds had been constituted as a
specialised force equipped with ultramodern weapons to solely
tackle the Naxalite menance and said it was deployed in
university campus as hundreds of buses were being burnt and
mass suicides being committed.
The submission angered the bench which remarked "if you
think Greyhounds should be deployed in such a situation, do
you deploy Greyhounds when political parties organise mass
ralies and meetings? It is a very serious matter".
Referring to the state's claim that intelligence inputs
had revealed that some of the students were sympathisers of
Naxalites, the apex court said merely being a sympathiser does
not make one a criminal.
PTI
First Published: Friday, February 26, 2010, 19:46