Clashes during SFI’s protest march to Bikash Bhavan
A protest march organised by the Students' Federation of India (SFI) turned chaotic on Monday as police clashed with demonstrators near Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake.
Protests rocked Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad today as family members and relatives raised slogans against Union Minister of Coal and BJP state president G Kishan Reddy demanding justice for the engineering student who drowned in the Hussain Sagar Lake, following a fire during a programme on the occasion of the Republic Day. The deceased S Ajay’s body was retrieved from the lake yesterday evening following a 48-hour search after a boat caught fire from fireworks that were part of the Bharat Matha Maha Arathi conducted by Bharata Matha Foundation. Apart from the union minister, the Governor, Jishnu Dev Varma, was also present in the programme.
Angry family members of the 21-year-old Ajay from Nagaram refused to sign the documents for the release of his body after a postmortem was conducted at the hospital. They held up posters demanding justice for Ajay and raised slogans of “Kishan Reddy down down.” The family wanted to meet the union minister who has been organising the Maha Arathi under the aegis of the Bharata Matha Foundation every year since 2018. Later, the minister’s representatives met the family members and assured them of financial assistance. They also assured that their other demands would be discussed after meeting the union minister. The demands include an ex-gratia amount of Rs one crore and a government job for the elder brother of Ajay. Later, the body was handed over to the family for conducting the funeral rites.
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The fireworks had led to a fire in one of the boats and a jetty after the Maha Arathi ended. Another person, Ganapathy, who was managing the fireworks, also suffered burns due to the misfiring of a firework and later succumbed to his injuries in a private hospital. Ajay who was on the boat went missing. His body was finally fished out of the lake after a 48-hour search. It is suspected that he had jumped into the water to escape the fire and had drowned. Two more people suffered minor injuries in the mishap.
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