Hyderabad: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hoist the National Flag on Saturday at the Parade Grounds on the occasion of Telangana Liberation Day. First Union Minister for Home Affairs Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel launched Operation Polo in 1948 to bring the rule of the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan to an end.

Amit Shah receiving the Guard of Honour from the Central Armed Forces at Parade Grounds has great significance. The BJP has been conducting various activities in the villages which bore the wounds of atrocities perpetrated by the Razakars. This year is special, as the Centre has officially announced that it will hold year long celebrations in Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra, commemorating the 74 years of liberation of Hyderabad on September 17^th, the day the Nizam Army had surrendered before the Army General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri.

The martyrdom of Ramji Gond, the first tribal freedom fighter from the Deccan, who was killed along with a thousand of his fighters, has been depicted in a life-size model at Parade Grounds, where a dummy model of bodies hanging from a banyan tree has been set up. It signifies the event where Ramji Gond’s fighters were killed and hanged from a banyan tree in Nirmal district, which later came to be known as the ‘Veyyi Urula Marri’.

A photo exhibition at the Parade Grounds paints a sombre picture of the events that unfolded during the struggle for liberation, though the Communists treat it as Peasants Armed Struggle Liberation Day.