news details |
|
|
| BJP's Ekta Yatra stopped, Jaitley, Swaraj among hundreds taken into police custody | | Party condemns 'surrender' to separatists | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Jammu, Jan 25 : In what appears to be the 'victory' for the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the battle of wits going on for the last few days between the NC led coalition government and the BJP over flag hoisting issue, the former managed to stop the Ekta Yatra from entering Jammu even as a defiant BJP leadership resisting the force too succeeded in crossing the barricades on Punjab border. Notwithstanding massive crackdown with widespread arrests throughout the day, high spirited BJP leaders vowed to go ahead with flag hoisting plans at Lal Chowk tomorrow. However, late this evening hundreds of activists including leaders were detained and are now in the custody of J&K Police at different places.
With all arrangements in place amid beefed up security bandobast, the state government had already closed all entry routes including the national highway to foil yatra and prevent its entry into J&K. EKta Yatra led by BJYM chief Aurag Thakur and accompanied by scores of national leaders had reached Punjab on Monday. In order not to leave any chance for Yatries to sneak in, the NC led government suspended traffic on the Jammu-Pathankot highway in addition to Jammu-Srinagar highway on which the traffic from this side remained suspended for the entire day. The Jawahar tunnel in Banihal - through which the yatra was to pass - also remained closed.
As the Yatra proceeded towards J&K this evening, hundreds of BJP workers were halted on the bridge. This bridge at Lakhanpur witnessed high drama as BJP activists tried to resist police force. Holding triclours and chandting Vande Matram, many of them raising anti government slogans, the activists moved in groups. Shortly after hundreds of party workers led by Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley crossed into the state after removing barricades with many of them courting arrest.Even after managing to cross the bridge, the activists raising patriotic slogans were prevented from moving ahead as the road was blocked on all sides.
Many of the BJP activists courted arrest as soon as they entered Jammu and Kashmir from Punjab and were taken away in buses to an undisclosed destination.
Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu said that among others who crossed the bridge were Ananth Kumar and Shanta Kumar. They removed the barricades and concertina wires on the bridge that Madhopur in Punjab to Lakhanpur, 90 km from Jammu.However, soon after crossing the bridge almost all of them were arrested and taken into police custody.
In keeping with the law and order situation , the Director General of J&K police later announced the arrest of BJP activists and its top leadership including Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar and Anurag Thakur.
The situation is tense as marchers who had assembled at the Punjab side of the Lakhanpur Bridge started to march towards the other side of the bridge - it lies in Jammu and Kashmir. The marchers carrying the national flag in their hands and shouting slogans "Bharat Mata ki jai", breached the barriers put up by the J&K police
The standoff between BJP and the Jammu and Kashmir government over the party's plan to hoist national flag at Srinagar with its leadership declaring it will not heed Union home minister P Chidambaram's request to avoid "confrontation".
"We will head towards Jammu and then towards Kashmir Valley for hoisting national flag at Lal Chowk along with hundreds of our activists," Swaraj earlier told reporters at Pathankot.
"We dare them (the state government) to stop us. Whereever they stop us, we will sit there at dharna till January 26," she added.
In a statement, Chidambaram during the day appealed to Swaraj and Jaitley and other BJP leaders to give up "path of confrontation" and not push any "political agenda" that will affect peace in Jammu and Kashmir.
Earler in the day, addressing a rally at Madhopur, both the BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj slammed the Omar Abdullah-led J&K government for stopping them from entering Jammu and also rejected Centre's appeal to turn back.
Clearly miffed at not being arrested in Jammu yesterday, which dampened the 'ekta yatris' spirit, Swaraj said that she was told that the BJP leaders were being taken to jail and yet they were unceremoniously dumped in Punjab.
"We will head towards Jammu and then towards Kashmir Valley for hoisting national flag at Lal Chowk along with hundreds of our activists. Where ever they stop us, we will sit there on a dharna till January 26," Swaraj told reporters before crossing the border with J&K.
With spirits high , the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said, "We will not leave till 6 p.m. tomorrow. We will sit on dharna till then…… If they want to arrest us, they can do so at any place."
Swaraj along with Jaitley and former Union Minister Ananth Kumar were sent back from Jammu and dropped on the bridge over Ravi river at Punjab's border at Madhopur near here late last night.
"We are not a banana republic... the way we were detained. They cannot physically throw us out like that. I informed the Home Minister regarding this to which he said that he would look into it," Jaitley said.
He described as a "criminal act" the Centre's decision to divert trains bound for Jammu. "What the government did by diverting trains and expelling the leaders amounts to hijack," he said.
Jaitley claimed that the situation in J&K was worse than it was in 1953 when people required a permit to enter the state. "But today you physically pick up people and throw them out of the state," Jaitley said.
Swaraj said that they were determined to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar tomorrow.
"They are employing such gimmicks.... The leaders of opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are not being told the truth and the way they are physically taken away is something unprecedented and unheard of," she said.
Meanwhile, the BJP today condemned the 'psychological surrender' to separatists by the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir government on tricolour hoisting issue in Srinagar's Lal Chowk.
What kind of message does the government want to send by unleashing ''repression against the nationalist forces?''.
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, who along with his Lok Sabha counterpart Sushma Swaraj was packed off to Punjab from Jammu airport yesterday, asked while talking to reporters in Punjab.
The government wants to convey to separatists that they did not allow the flag hoisting, he said.
''Ours is a struggle against separatists but the Jammu and Kashmir government was sealing its borders, illegally detaining people, seizing their transports and externing them from the state,'' he said.
He said, ''A strange situation prevails in the state. Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee entered Kashmir without permit in 1953 to return dead. After his death, the permit system was abolished but the same situation prevailed today without permit system where people were detained without committing any offence.'' Chief Minister Omar Abdullah very well knew that such detentions were illegal, he added.
The BJP leader said hoisting of national flag was only a symbol of nationalism. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
