The anti-bifurcation agitation in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions took a turn for the worse with police imposing curfew and issuing shoot-at-sight orders in the north coastal Andhra town of Vizianagaram following large-scale violence in the past three days, even as six districts in Seemandhra went without power on Sunday with employees of power utilities joining the strike.

According to D. Tirumala Rao, Inspector General of Police (North Coastal Zone), the decision to impose curfew was taken after the situation threatened to spiral out of control with angry agitators indulging in arson and damaging public and private properties. The mobs also set fire to a bank, he said, adding people have been asked not to come out on the roads without permission.

The state Congress chief and Transport Minister Botsa Satyanarayana hails from Vizianagaram, and the anti-division agitators have been targeting his residence in the town. Additional police forces have been deployed in the town to bring the situation under control.

On Sunday, despite the curfew and shoot-at-sight orders, violence continued in the town with agitators taking to the streets and pelting stones and targeting an engineering college reportedly run by the family of Satyanarayana. Police fired rubber bullets at the mobs, lobbed tear-gas shells and cane-charge to disperse the angry mobs in various parts of the town.

Meanwhile, the power situation in the state turned grim with about 30,000 employees of power utilities launching an indefinite strike against the UPA government’s decision to carve a separate Telangana state. The strike, called for by the Seemandhra Electricity Employees Joint Action Committee, affected power generation in the region, resulting in disruption of power supply to dozens of towns and hundreds of villages in the region. The strike by electricity employees also hit train services in the region with the South Central Railway announcing the cancelation of seven passenger trains.

With the power sector employees adamant on their stand that they would not return to work till the Center reverses its decision to divide the state, there is a possibility that not just the 13 Seemandhra districts but the entire state may see dark days ahead. If the strike continues for a few days, it may indeed hit the southern grid, which links Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.