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Gujjar leader’s help taken by Raje Govt. to tackle crisis

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Government was forced to take help from the jailed Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla on Sunday night to pacify a group of Gujjars who had held up a goods train on the Bayana-Hindaun route in Bharatpur and blocked the Delhi-Mumbai rail route.

Col. Bainsla, who was transported by road from Ajmer Jail to Bayana just before midnight on Sunday, accomplished the task after meeting his fellow-community men. He was taken back to the jail late on Monday night. Government sources here explained that Col. Bainsla’s intervention was solicited as the Gujjars were unrelenting on their rail block programme.

The goods train, held up near Karvari village by them from Sunday afternoon, was loaded with petroleum products. Some persons in the crowd were said to be carrying firearms. The agitators also had removed the rail track along a 250-300-metre stretch. After Col. Bainsla made a personal appeal, the crowd agreed to vacate the railway track for the mechanics to carry out the repairs. Traffic on the Delhi-Mumbai rail route was restored after 21 hours.

Similarly, the roadblock at Gudla village was lifted to make way for traffic between Karauli and Hinduan after Col. Bainsla made a personal appearance there.

Talks between the representatives of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangarsh Samiti (Gujjar reservation agitation committee) and the State Government were to be resumed in Ajmer after Col. Bainsla’s return. Around 60,000 Gujjar volunteers who courted arrest on Gandhi Jayanti to press their demand for categorisation of Gujjars as Scheduled Tribes are still lodged in jails across the State as they refuse to seek bail.

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