Jammu: Several Congress workers and leaders were detained here on Saturday, including party General Secretary Syed Naseer Hussain and Jammu and Kashmir unit chief Tariq Hameed Karra, after police stopped their march, officials said.
Police took action when hundreds of Congress workers, including women, gathered at Maharaja Hari Singh Park and began marching towards Lok Bhawan as part of the party’s “Hamari Riyasat Hamari Haq” movement, demanding the restoration of statehood for Jammu and Kashmir and a “Save MNREGA Struggle.”
The party’s chief spokesperson in the Union Territory, Ravinder Sharma, told PTI, “Hussain, Karra, AICC General Secretary and Congress Legislature Party leader Ghulam Ahmed Mir, Working President (of the Jammu and Kashmir unit) Raman Bhalla, and AICC Secretary and Punjab MLA Pargat Singh were among several leaders detained by police near Jewel Chowk.” Criticizing the police action, he said that the Congress had planned a peaceful march to Lok Bhavan to raise public welfare issues, but party workers were taken away in police vehicles and held at the district police lines for about an hour before being released.
Sharma said that several people were detained, including former Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, former ministers Mula Ram, Yogesh Sahni, Jugal Kishore Sharma, G.M. Saroori, Majid Wani, Manohar Lal Sharma, Yashpal Kundal, Gurbachan Kumari Rana, Shabbir Ahmed Khan, MLAs Nizamuddin Bhat, Irfan Lone, and Iftikhar Ahmed, and former MP T.S. Bajwa.
Police prevented the Congress procession from crossing the barricaded Jewel Chowk on the way to Lok Bhavan, leading to a brief scuffle between security personnel and party workers.
Sharma said that former minister Choudhary Lal Singh and his supporters were detained at the nearby Parade Ground because they managed to reach there via another route. Speaking to reporters, Hussain, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir, accused the central government of “ignoring” the most popular and legitimate demand of the people of the Union Territory.
He said that the entire Congress leadership supports the party’s Jammu and Kashmir unit’s struggle for statehood.
He urged the central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to immediately announce the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, saying that the people felt “cheated and betrayed” by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s failure to fulfill its promise.
Karra praised the Congress cadre for their tremendous strength and said the party would continue its struggle to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
He said, “This march was also to protest the Modi government’s replacement of the MNREGA scheme with a new scheme, which is against the interests of the country’s rural poor.”
