26 hurt as cops cane dalits in AP

The police resorted to caning, burst tear-gas shells and used water cannons to disperse a procession of dalits which turned violent, leaving more than 26 people injured in Hyderabad on Monday.

A section of about 25,000 dalits broke the police cordon and attempted to force their way towards the secretariat to see Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu.

The dalits had converged on Hyderabad in response to the ''Chalo secretariat'' call given by the Mala Mahanaadu in protest against the Andhra Pradesh government's move to categorise dalits into four groups.

The processionists were caned in front of the state secretariat gates and near the Ambedkar statue.

Nineteen people were injured in police caning and seven policemen in stone-throwing by the crowd. Eyewitnesses, however, claimed that the injured could be ''double the official figure''.

Windshields of about a dozen vehicles were smashed, Hyderabad Police Commissioner R P Singh told the media.

Earlier, the body of one Goppapadu Narayana, 60, from Daggubati village of Prakasam district was found near Ambedkar Bhavan, the originating point of the procession.

While the police commissioner maintained the exact cause of the death was not yet known, the chief minister told the media that Narayana had fallen from a truck. Naidu announced Rs 100,000 ex-gratia to the family of the deceased.

However, an unconfirmed report said he had died in an stampede near Ambedkar Bhavan.

Singh said a section of the crowd turned restive, demanding that a representative of the government come and talk to them, instead of a delegation calling on the chief minister.

When some processionists broke through the wire barricade by driving a truck and another section pulled away the barricade, the police swing into action, he said.

UNI