Black T-shirts, red faces at Assembly gate
BRS legislators including KTR and Harish Rao were detained after police stopped them from entering the Telangana Assembly in protest T-shirts. Police objected to the slogans, not the colour. The distinction arrived after the detention.
Police said black clothing was allowed, but slogans were not.
BRS legislators including K. T. Rama Rao and T. Harish Rao were detained at the Telangana Assembly gate on September 7 after police stopped them from entering in black T-shirts carrying slogans against the Congress government’s 1,000-day record. They were later taken to Telangana Bhavan, according to multiple reports.
The police account, attributed to Khairatabad DCP Shilpavali, was that black clothing was not prohibited; the words printed on the T-shirts were the problem. Police also denied indecent conduct and said they would examine video footage. No written Speaker’s instruction, detention record or official police release was available in the material reviewed.
BRS leaders alleged that police manhandled legislators, including P. Sabita Indra Reddy and V. Sunitha Laxma Reddy. Those allegations remain unverified. The Congress government, the Assembly Speaker’s office and the police have not publicly produced the rule that made a slogan more dangerous than the gate itself. For now, the Assembly has established one thing: black is allowed, provided it says nothing inconvenient.