news details |
|
|
| Mubarak Mandi turning into another ‘Jantar Mantar” | | ‘Hot seat for holding protest demonstrations’ | | Vikas Sharma
Jammu | May 3
It sounds incredible but is true that the one of the most important, historical and the heritage monument of the State, Mubarak Mandi, complex in the winter capital of the state is turning into another Jantar Mantar of Delhi.
The Complex has added much importance as each and every demonstration is organized there. Be it political, social or otherwise. Hardly a day is left when there is no dharna or demonstration organized in the complex catching the very eye of the administration and the people living around it.
A visit to the complex presents a rosy look as each and every corner of the complex is occupied by the protestors along with their posters and banner highlighting their demands and problems. At present four different organizations are holding their dharnas continuously in the complex premises since last one year. They include unemployed Electrical ITI diploma holders and unemployed engineers, Doda migrants and workers of Home Guards who are on protest dharna since more than a year now. The CAPD workers who did not lag behind also and opened up its protest counter some months ago.
It is worth mentioning that apart from these organizations, a dozen other organizations have made the complex as their protest platform and are holding occasionally their protest demonstrations. The protestors choose the site as being the seat of the divisional administration housing the office of Divisional Commissioner Jammu.
The clerical staff employees, ousted class-IV Excise and Sales Taxes Department employees, medical employees, low paid employees and various other organizations have also opted this historical place to show their resentment against the policies of the government.
Not only this the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party too has chosen the site to organize its protest demonstrations. Currently the party’s Chairman Prof Bhim Singh is on a day’s hunger strike in the complex.
When Early Times Correspondent asked about why he had chosen this particular site to hold his one day token hunger strike, Prof Singh said Mubarak Mandi is acknowledged as one of the important seat of Dogras and it is also beneficial to start any protest right from outside the office of the Divisional commissioner, who is the first representative of the state government.
According to the estimates, over three hundred protests are being organized in the complex annually.
While talking with the Early Times, Deputy Superintending Engineer, Archeological Survey of India (ASI), K K Khanna, who is supervising the entire project of the renovation of the Mubarak Mandi heritage complex said that after looking the spot one can easily rename it New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar
Holding of large number of protest demonstrations in the premises, is bound to destroy the glory of the heritage complex, he said and called for putting a halt to such practices in the complex. Holding of such large scale demonstration in the complex has adversely hampered the renovation work of this important and the historical monument which is developed as a heritage centre, he added.
Romesh Verma one of the resident of the area said, “The presence of so many organizations in the premises reminds me of the older days of the Maharaja when he used to hold the routine public Darbar in the complex to interact with the people of cross-sections of the society and redress their grievances.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
