Congress Leaders Detained During Massive Protest in Jammu, Demand Restoration of Statehood

Jammu, July 18:  Hundreds of congress workers led by AICC Incharge JK affairs Shri Bharat Sinh Solanki, JKPCC President Vikar Rasool Wani along with  AICC Secretary Manoj Yadav, working President Raman Bhalla, Ex-MP Ch Lal Singh, Ravinder Sharma, Mula Ram, Balwan Singh, Yogesh Sawhney and other senior leaders were taken into custody while leading a strong protest against rising terror attacks besides seeking restoration of statehood.

Police had a tough time to foil the congress march to LG house,as the agitated protestors broke the police cordon from Shaheedi Chowk Jammu to Raghunath Bazar, at several places when finally they held a sit-in Dharna for over one hour at Raghunath Mandir Chowk, before being taken into custody by police and taken to DPL Jammu.  Police resorted to heavy lathi charges at several places in which some leaders and workers received injuries including Senior leader Vinod Sharma Vice President PCC.

A strong protest demonstration was taken out by congress workers in Jammu city from Shaheedi Chowk over the issue of rising terrorism & failure of the BJP-led centre government besides opposing the recent order snatching powers of the elected government and seeking restoration of statehood.

A large number of Senior Congress leaders of PCC, DCCs, frontal wings, and workers including women from different areas, blocks, and districts of Jammu province took part in the protest.

The protestors raised strong slogans against the BJP government at the centre and the UT administration for the rising terror attacks and spurt in terror activities and martyrdom of our soldiers. They raised slogans against BJP and the Modi government questioned their utter failure.

They criticized the recent order snatching powers of the elected government and vesting in Lt Governor just before assembly elections. They demanded the restoration of immediate restoration of statehood & holding of assembly elections under statehood.

Talking to media persons during protest Solanki said that the Modi-led BJP government has utterly failed to control terrorism, especially in the Jammu region which was peaceful earlier but terrorism has risen to a great extent in Jammu. Our Jawans are getting martyred and the government says normalcy has been restored.

BJP wants to run the government through the backdoor and passed a dictatorial order of snatching powers from the elected government before elections, so restoration of statehood is the only option to restore democratic powers to the people of J& K.

Hitting hard the BJP government for total failure to control terrorism and restore democracy, JKPCC President Vikar Rasool Wani said that the BJP claimed normalcy throughout the country in the  Lok Sabha elections. The situation has deteriorated in the Jammu region during the past two years leading to the huge causality of our forces.

He said that after five years of UT, the situation is worse, so restore statehood and restore powers of Governance to the people, opposing the recent order giving full powers to Lt Governor.

Raman Bhalla also blasted the centre government and UT administration for the worst situation in the Jammu region which is a cause of concern for the nation. The sacrifices of our Jawans is intolerable and the Modi government should strengthen the security grid.

He demanded the restoration of statehood immediately and full powers to the government to solve lot of hardships faced by people.

Prominent leaders who attended the protest included  Vice Presidents T. S. Bajwa, Vinod Sharma,  Ved Mahajan, Hari Singh Chib,  Yash Pal Kun dal, Rajnish Sharma, Th. Balbir Singh, Indu Pawar, General Secretaries Narinder Gupta(Org), M.K. Bhardwaj, Pawan Raina, Shashi Sharma, T.S. Tony, Namrata Sharma, Naresh Kumar, Amrit Bali, Suresh Dogra, Shakeel Shah, Praveen Khan, Balbir Singh, Shakeel Mir, Rajesh Sadotra, Subash Bhagat, Satish Sharma, Thomas Khokhar, Santosh Majotra, DCC Presidents, Th. Manmohan Singh, Pankaj Dogra, Sanjeev Sharma, Vinod Khajuria, Bhupinder Singh Jamwal, Uday Chib  (IYC), Secretaries Kuldeep Raj Verma, Sanjeev Panda, Dwarka Choudhary, Satish Sharma, Rajvir Singh,  Pankaj Sharma, Kulbir Singh, Vijay Tagotra, Michael Wazir Working Presidents Babal Gupta, Badri Nath, Charanjeet Bhagat, Sumit Magotra, Frontal heads Vijay Sharma(Seva Dal, Akash Sharma(PYC), Ajay Lakhotra(NSUI), Karan  Bhagat (SC), Bhanu Mahajan (Mahila, Sandeep Dogra(OBC), Jatin Raina, Ricky Dalotra, Rajesh Sharma, Anirudh Sawhney, Sonika Sharma, Pritam Bhagat, Rashpal Singh, Rajni Bala, Camres Dabit Babloo, Parshotam Mehra and others.