Delhi dharna of JAP foiled

RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT, Mar 16, 2018 Kalimpong: The Jana Andolan Party on Thursday alleged that the Delhi Police had prevented its activists from staging a dharna in front of the Parliament House in New Delhi by confining them to hotels from early morning to midday.

Bishal Rai, the president of the Yuva Ekai, the youth wing of the JAP, said a posse of policemen descended on the four hotels located in the Paharganj area of the capital very early in the morning and told the party activists not to leave the hotel complexes.

"I and my friend Bhupen Rai (secretary of Yuwa Ekai) were literally pulled up from our beds and taken to the nearby police station and detained there for close to five hours while others were asked not to leave their hotels," he alleged on phone from Delhi.

While under detention, Rai said the police had grilled them extensively before releasing them in the afternoon. "We had two programmes lined up in Delhi today. First was a dharna on Parliament Street and the second a discussion at the Constitutional Club of India in the evening. However, the police thwarted our dharna," he said.

The youth leader wondered why the police had prevented the JAP activists from exercising their Constitutional right to protest. "Every citizen is allowed to voice his demand. Our demand for Gorkhaland is a legitimate one, but sadly the police by preventing us from staging the dharna have violated our democratic and Constitutional rights for reasons we are yet to fathom," he said.

Rai also accused Darjeeling MP and Union agriculture minister S. S. Ahluwalia of failure to protect the rights of the people who had overwhelmingly voted for him and got him elected to the Lok Sabha.

"This silence of our MP is sad. He has not uttered a word despite our rights being violated so flagrantly. Both he and BJP have failed to provide justice to the Gorkhas," he said.