JAMMU — Scores of Congress activists, including AICC General Secretary Syed Naseer Hussain and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Tariq Hameed Karra, were detained after police on Saturday stopped a proposed march to Lok Bhawan here, officials said.
Police took action after hundreds of Congress workers gathered at Maharaja Hari Singh Park and began marching towards Lok Bhawan as part of the party’s ‘Hamari Riyasat Hamara Haq’ movement seeking restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, along with the ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram.’
Hussain (MP), Karra, AICC General Secretary and CLP leader G A Mir, Working President Raman Bhalla and AICC Secretary and Punjab MLA Pargat Singh were among the Congress leaders detained by police near Jewel Chowk, Congress chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma said.
Condemning the police action, he said the Congress had planned a peaceful march to Lok Bhawan to highlight public welfare issues, but the leaders were taken away in waiting police vehicles and lodged at district police lines for nearly an hour, before being released.
Former Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Tara Chand, former ministers Mula Ram, Yogesh Sawhney, Jugal Kishore Sharma, G M Saroori, Majid Wani, Manohar Lal Sharma, Yash Pal Kundal, Gurbachan Kumari Rana, Shabir Ahmed Khan, MLAs Nizamuddin Bhat, Irfan Lone and Iftikhar Ahmed and former MP T S Bajwa were among the others detained, Sharma said.
Police did not allow the Congress procession to cross the barricaded Jewel chowk en route to the Lok Bhawan, leading to a minor scuffle between the security personnel and the party workers.
Former minister Choudhary Lal Singh and his supporters were detained at the nearby Parade Ground after they managed to reach there following a different route, Sharma said.
Talking to reporters while being whisked away, Hussain, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir, lashed out at the BJP-led Centre for “ignoring” the most popular and legitimate demand of the people of the Union Territory for the restoration of statehood.
He said the entire Congress leadership supports the struggle of the party’s Jammu and Kashmir unit for restoration of statehood.
He urged the Centre, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to immediately announce the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, saying people feel “cheated and betrayed” over the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) failure to fulfil its promise.
Karra lauded the Congress cadre for the massive show of strength and said the party will continue its struggle for the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
“The march was also to register the protest over the replacement of the MGNREGA with a new scheme of the Modi government that is against the interests of the country’s rural poor,” he said.
The BJP-led Centre recently replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Act. — (PTI)