Amid fears of violence in Andhra Pradesh, Justice B.N. Srikrishna, who heads the panel for examining the contentious issue of statehood for Telangana, Tuesday said the committee will present the report by the Dec 31 deadline, even as the Andhra Pradesh government withdrew all criminal cases filed during protests for a separate state.“The report will be given to the government before Dec 31. We will make sure that it is given before Dec 31,” Srikrishna, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, told reporters here.
“We have gone into all aspects. It’s comprehensive,” Srikrishna said while refusing to disclose the contents of the report.
In February, the Srikrishna committee was constituted to examine, among other things, the situation in Andhra Pradesh that arose in the aftermath of the demand for a separate State of Telangana and the protests in the state against the move.
Srikrishna, however, clarified that it was for the state government to ensure law and order and asserted that his job will end when the report is submitted. It is the duty of the government machinery to ensure that there is no violence, he said.
Fearing violence after the report is submitted, the Andhra Pradesh government has sought at least 125 companies of central forces. The central government has already dispatched about 50 companies, or about 4,500 personnel, from various central forces, including the Central Industrial Security Force and Border Security Force, to Hyderabad for deployment in the Telangana region.
Besides Justice Srikrishna, the panel comprises Ranbir Singh, vice-chancellor of Delhi’s National Law University; Abusaleh Shariff, senior research fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, Delhi; Ravinder Kaur, professor, department of humanities and social sciences, Indian Institute of Technology- Delhi; and Vinod K. Duggal, former Union home secretary.
Earlier Tuesday, the Andhra Pradesh government decided to withdraw all criminal cases filed during protests for a separate Telangana state.
After a series of discussions Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy had with ministers and other ruling party leaders from the region, the government agreed to withdraw the 967 pending cases. These will be in addition to the cases withdrawn earlier.
The cases were booked during the protests for and against a separate Telangana state in all three regions of the state between November 2009 and September 2010.
