Normal life was affected in parts of Andhra Pradesh and stray incidents of violence were reported Monday during a shutdown called by the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to protest the arrest of its chief N. Chandrababu Naidu in Maharashtra.

The strike evoked mixed response in the state capital and 22 other districts. State-owned Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) had to partially suspend bus services here and other towns.

Protesters set afire a bus in Sanathnagar area in Hyderabad, while 11 buses were damaged in other parts of the state.

Educational institutions, shops, petrol bunks, cinema theatres, business establishments, banks were closed in parts of Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Kakinada, Tirupati and Guntur.

Over 2,000 TDP activists were arrested by police for staging road and rail blockades and forcing shops and business establishments to down shutters. The movement of vehicular traffic on national and state highways was affected due to the road blockades by protesters.

Director General of Police R.R. Girish Kumar said the strike passed off peacefully without any major incidents. According to him, 2,391 people were taken into preventive custody.

The movement of trains was disrupted in some places by TDP workers. The protesters stopped the Hyderabad-Mumbai Hussain Sagar Express at Tandur in Ranga Reddy district and the Guntur-Secunderabad Golconda Express at Ghanpur station in Warangal district.

TDP Rajya Sabha member N. Harikrishna was arrested by police at Basara in Adilabad district when he was going towards Dharmabad in Maharashtra to meet Naidu and other TDP leaders, who are in judicial custody. Harikrishna, who is also the son-in-law of Naidu, was shifted to Nizamabad.

In Secunderabad in the state capital, police arrested 50 TDP activists including former minister T. Srinivas Yadav when they tried to enforce the shutdown.

Former mayor T. Krishna Reddy and other TDP leaders were arrested for blocking roads at the RTC crossroads in Hyderabad. Former minister K. Srihari and about 50 other party workers were arrested at Ghanpur in Warangal district.

Tension prevailed in Vijayawada as TDP activists tried to forcibly close shops but the attempts were resisted by Congress workers. Police arrested former MP G. Rammohan Rao and other TDP leaders.

TDP workers staged a sit-in outside the APSRTC depots in Hyderabad and elsewhere to stop buses from plying. The Maharashtra Road Transport Corporation stopped all its bus services to Andhra Pradesh as a precautionary measure.

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However, he refused to talk to the media.

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DR. AUSAF SAYEED, an officer of the 1989 Batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and presently serving as Joint Secretary (West Africa) at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Yemen. This was announced by the Ministry today.

Dr Ausaf Sayeed is one of the youngest IFS officers to be appointed as Ambassador.  He earlier worked in Indian Missions in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Denmark in various capacities.  He is a great patron of  art, culture and Urdu language and literature and was instrumental in organising several Mushairas (poetry sessions), seminars, symposia, humorous sessions and Ghazal and musical programmes. 

A gold medalist from Osmania University and a Competent Toastmaster (CTM), Dr Sayeed belongs to a literary family of Hyderabad.  His father Awaz Sayeed (late) was a renowned modern Urdu short story writer and his uncle, Prof. Mughni Tabassum, is a well-known Urdu poet and critic. Dr Sayeed has authored a book titled ‘Trends in Objective Geology for Civil Services and Other Competitive Examinations’. He has also compiled the Urdu book ‘Kuliyaat-e-Awaz Sayeed’, which comprises of the entire literary works of his father. He is also working on two other books, "Haj: an Indian Experience through the Ages" and “Indian Rubats, Madarsas and Wakfs in the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah”.

Dr Ausaf Sayeed is an Arab by descent with affiliation to the Al-Musalli clan. His paternal great grand-father served as a State Treasurer under the Sultan of Al-Mukalla in Southern Yemen during early 1900s, before migrating to Hyderabad  along with his teenage son Sayeed bin Abdullah and several other members of the Court of Mokalla to join the services of the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Dr Ausaf Sayeed is married to Farha, an accomplished painter and an egg artist. The couple has three sons, Faateh (18 yrs), Faaleh (15 yrs) and Azhaan (11 years). 

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HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh police on Wednesday arrested terror operative Viqaruddin Ahmed, who was on the run for more than two years after masterminding the killing of a home guard and a constable in the city.

On information that he was moving around in disguise, the police nabbed him when he came to a roadside shop to buy vegetables at Padmaraonagar in Secunderabad.

The police were on the lookout for Viqaruddin ever since he went underground immediately after the Mecca Masjid blast here in May 2007. He narrowly avoided arrest on December 3, 2008, after firing at two policemen. He is also believed to be behind the fatal attacks on policemen at Falaknuma on May 18, 2009 and May 14, 2010.

The Counter Intelligence Cell also detained his brother, Sulaiman, and two others after raiding a single-room tenement they had taken on rent at Shabajiguda of Padmaraonagar.

Among the detained was a homeopathy doctor, Mohammed Haneef, of Musheerabad, who sheltered Viqaruddin. Based on Viqaruddin's confession, two youths were picked up from Miryalaguda in Nalgonda district, 140 km from here. They are being questioned.

Police records show that Viqaruddin, who lives in Malakpet, was initially associated with the Darsgah Jihad-O-Shahadat, a religious fundamentalist organisation operating from the Old City.

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