By IANS
Hyderabad : At least six people were killed and eight injured when police opened fire on a huge mob of protesting Left party activists in Andhra Pradesh's Khammam district Saturday.
One woman was among those killed in the police firing at Modigonda, about 250 km from here. The condition of three of the injured is stated to be critical.
The police opened fire when hundreds of workers of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) allegedly turned violent and attacked them with stones.
The CPI and CPI-M had given a call for a daylong shutdown Saturday to protest the use of force by police on their activists at different places in the state on Thursday.
The left parties are demanding distribution of government land and house sites among the poor. As part of the demand, the parties had staged demonstrations across the state Thursday and at a few places the police had caned them.
The shutdown, supported by the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP), has hit normal life in some parts of the state.