The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP, RSS, VHP workers court arrest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 22, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

BJP, RSS, VHP workers court arrest

Staff Reporter

To express solidarity with the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti

Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

‘Jail Bharo’: Bharatiya Janata Party, RSS and VHP workers staging a demonstration in Delhi on Thursday .

NEW DELHI: Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Swayansewak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Thursday led a large number of workers to court arrest at six different offices of the Deputy Commissioners of Police across Delhi as part of their “jail bharo” campaign to express solidarity with the Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti.

In East Delhi, the protest was led among others by Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan and party leader Shahnawaz Hussain.

The protesters assembled behind the Nepali Temple near Karkardooma Court and marched towards the DCP office at Bhola Nath Nagar where they courted arrest.

‘Secular movement’

Dr. Vardhan said it should not be forgotten that while the Amarnath movement in which patriotic Hindus and Muslims were standing together as one, the movement in Srinagar was being spearheaded by separatist elements.

Likewise, in South Delhi the protesters were led by BJP national general secretary Arun Jaitley, in Central Delhi by Deputy Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Vijay Kumar Malhotra and in North Delhi by national general secretary Vijay Goel.

Firebrand VHP leader Praveen Togadia was at the forefront of the agitation in West Delhi where Leader of the Opposition in Delhi Assembly Jagdish Mukhi and former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma’s son Pravesh Verma also courted arrest.

During all the protest marches, the senior leader accused the erstwhile Congress-led Government of Jammu and Kashmir of cancelling the allotment of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board under pressure from a handful of separatists.

They charged that this was an insult for all religious minded Indians. The protesters demanded that the Centre intervene in this matter and restore the land to the Shrine Board.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi