Home Guard climbs unipole, ripple effect chokes traffic

HYDERABAD: Protesting former Home Guards caused traffic havoc in the core city on Monday morning.
Police apprehended 31 former Home Guards and their family members, including the one who climbed a unipole, and those who staged a rasta roko at Khairatabad flyover, to solve the three-hour-long drama on Monday afternoon.


At 9.30am, Buran Goud, 32, from Kodur village in Mahbubnagar district, scaled the unipole adjacent to Khairatabad flyover.

Buran Goud was one of the 400 Home Guards who were removed from service in 2011after it was found that they were appointed by certain officials without following due procedure.

Goud, who has two children, is currently working as a security guard in Mahbubnagar. On Monday morning, he along with other former Home Guards, who lost their jobs in 2011, came to protest at Khairatabad. While Buran Goud scaled the unipole, others squatted at the beginning of the flyover, blocking Khairatabad-Necklace Road rotary stretch.

Due to the impromptu protest, traffic on Raj Bhavan Road, Panjagutta- Khairatabad road and Khairatabad flyover came to a halt for over an hour.

Police diverted the traffic going from Raj Bhavan Road and Panjagutta to Necklace Road rotary via Old Saifabad police station and Telephone Bhavan stretches. As a result, traffic moved at a snail’s pace in the areas abutting the flyover till about 12.30pm.

Finally, at around noon, the police apprehended 30 protesters sitting on the road and used fire department’s special skylift ladder to bring down Buran Goud from the unipole.

“The Home Guards were removed from service in 2011. We have registered a case against the protesting former Home Guards and their family members under sections 143, 147, 149, 353, 109, 341 and 309 of the IPC for unlawful assembly, obstruction of public servants, blocking the road and abettment to suicide and an attempt to commit suicide,” Central Zone deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Hyderabad, P Viswa Prasad said.

Buran Goud was sent to Gandhi Hospital for health checkup, while the other persons booked were let off by Saifabad police after they received notices pertaining to the case.