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Wednesday, Oct 03, 2007
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Massive security for Gujjar agitation

Special Correspondent

Arrangements made for 259 temporary jails — in schools, dharmshalas and mandi yards

— Photo: PTI

JOINING HANDS: Members of the Gujjar community during a “Jail Bharo Andolan" in Ajmer on Tuesday.

JAIPUR: Even as thousands of Gujjar volunteers courted arrest in seven divisions of Rajasthan on Gandhi Jayanti to press for the community’s demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status, the refrain of the Gujjar leaders, including Congress MP Sachin Pilot, was that the issue should not be politicised. Once it got into Parliament in the form of a Bill, support from all parties would be needed for its passage.

The State administration — bitten once by the unprecedented ferocity of the first leg of the agitation which claimed 26 lives in May last — had made massive arrangements for this round of protest. As promised by the Gujjar leaders, it was peaceful. The Government has made arrangements for 259 temporary jails — in schools, dharmshalas and mandi yards — in 21 districts for keeping the agitators as regular jails do not have much space.

Milk supply

There was widespread apprehension in the State about the court arrest programme as in the run-up the Gujjars had resorted to some extreme steps such as draining out milk on the streets and stopping milk supply to the public and the dairy companies. Many volunteers had started from their villages on foot a day before to reach the seven designated places to court arrest.

Women applied vermilion on their foreheads while bidding them farewell, as they would do to warriors of yore leaving home.

Talking to The Hindu on phone from Bharatpur soon after his arrest, Col. Bainsla termed the day’s protest as “indefinite” as those arrested would not seek bail or release until the State sends a letter to the Centre recommending ST status to the community. “I myself would remain in jail till the Government relents on our demand,” he said. He claimed that five lakh people were arrested during the protest.

Ill treatment

“We condemn the attempt of the Government to project a figure much less than the actual numbers. We have received complaints of ill treatment of our volunteers in Kota by the police after their arrest. Some of them have been transported by buses and thrown out in the forests in the dark,” Dr. Roop Singh claimed.

Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria termed the day’s exercise “peaceful” but expressed his inability to provide the number of those arrested.

“No untoward incident has been reported from any place so far,” he said. The arrests were voluntary and if anyone wanted to go home he would be allowed to do so, Mr. Kataria said.

Suspend milk supply

In Tonk district, the Gujjar community decided not to sell milk till a positive settlement on its demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

The boycott of the traditional occupation of the dairy farming by the community was announced on Monday.

The District Gujjar Doodh Utpadak Sangh (Gujjar milk producers’ association) president, Ramdayal Gujjar, announced in Tonk on Saturday that the ban was also on milk supply to dairy companies, shops, restaurants and households.

Gujjars supply bulk of the milk consumed in Tonk and the neighbouring districts of Dausa, Sawai Madhopur and Karauli, the hotbed of confrontation during the first round of the violent agitation by the community in May.

Threat of ostracisation

The members of the Rajasthan Gujjar Mahasabha said the ban might be extended to more districts.

Ramdeo Gujjar, president of the Gujjar Mahasabha Tonk (City), said anyone who disobeyed the ban would be punished with a fine of Rs.5,001. If the person refused to pay the penalty the community would ostracise his family, he said.

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