House arrest for visiting students? Sure
Two reports say BRS’s Harish Rao was stopped at home before he could meet Warangal polytechnic students protesting the Congress government’s GO 97. No police order shown, just a convenient lock on the door.
The reported house arrest came without a detention memo or cited legal provision.
Telangana Today reported that BRS Legislature Party deputy leader T. Harish Rao was placed under house arrest at his Kokapet residence on Thursday morning, ahead of a planned visit to Government Polytechnic College, Warangal. A Telugu report carried the same basic claim. Both tie it to his plan to meet students opposing the Congress government’s proposed integration of polytechnic education with Young India Skills University and demanding withdrawal of G.O. Ms. No. 97. The reports did not produce a detention memo, the officer’s name, or the legal provision invoked; they say police told him he had “no permission to participate in the protest.”
The wider student agitation is on the record: protests across Telangana have targeted GO 97 over ECET and lateral entry, fees, scholarships and the future of diploma education. The government has since formed a committee headed by K. Keshava Rao with 30 days to report, and ministers have offered verbal reassurances that the diploma, ECET and lateral entry will continue. Students have asked for it in writing.
What is on paper from the state, months earlier, is the intention to fold ITIs/ATCs and polytechnics under YISU and align courses to “employability”. What is not on paper, at least publicly, is GO 97 itself — the order the Congress government insists is harmless and the students do not trust. Blocking an opposition leader from meeting them does not answer either question. It just saves the Congress a few awkward photos.