Mahabubabad SHO suspended after choking students during protest

Hyderabad: The Mahabubabad Town Inspector has been removed from duty after video footage showed him grabbing students by their throats during a protest outside the District Collectorate, Mahabubabad Superintendent of Police P Shabarish confirmed on Thursday, August 20.

Shabarish said a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP)-level officer has been tasked with conducting a detailed inquiry into the incident. He added that appropriate action would be taken based on the findings of the report.

The trouble began on August 19, when polytechnic students gathered outside the District Collectorate to protest against the state government’s decision to merge polytechnic colleges with Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Apprentice Training Centres under the newly created Shakti department.

During the demonstration, Inspector Raghupathi Reddy was seen manhandling two students, grabbing them by their throats as he tried to push them back.

The protests are linked to Government Order (GO) 97, issued on July 3, which renamed the Labour, Employment, Training and Factories Department as SHAKTI—short for Skill, Human Capital and Knowledge Training Initiatives—and brought polytechnic colleges under the Young India Skill University.

Students fear the merger will take away their access to ECET, the lateral-entry scheme that enables diploma holders to join undergraduate engineering programmes directly. Several protesters said the move would force them to repeat Intermediate education if they wanted to pursue a BTech degree, effectively nullifying three years of diploma study.