Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police Wednesday foiled separate protest marches of the ruling National Conference (NC) and the opposition BJP in Srinagar.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had planned a gherao of the civil secretariat, and the NC was to protest at the BJP office, but both marches were foiled after protesters of the two parties clashed with security forces.
Senior NC leaders, including Health and Education Minister Sakina Itoo, MLAs Tanvir Sadiq, Salman Sagar, Ahsan Pardesi, Shamima Firdous, Hilal Parray and others marched towards the Jawahar Nagar office of the BJP shouting slogans for restoration of Article 370, statehood and other constitutional guarantees to J&K.
Police and the security forces stopped the NC protesters near the Rajbagh police station as barricades had been erected on the road to prevent the march.
The NC protesters clashed with the police, and some of them were taken into preventive custody as they were not allowed to move towards the BJP office in Jawahar Nagar area.
Nasir Aslam Wani, advisor to the Chief Minister, told reporters on the sidelines of the NC protest that the government is compelled to stage a protest as key issues, including restoration of statehood and rationalisation of reservations, remained pending despite waiting for two years.
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He said NC has been patiently waiting for the commitments made to the people to be fulfilled. “Understand why we are compelled to stage this protest. For two years, we have been sitting patiently and waiting with the hope that the promises made to us would be fulfilled. People had expected statehood to be restored after the elections, but no concrete discussion had taken place on the issue.”
“We had full hope that statehood would be restored, but there has been no discussion on it,” he said.
On reservation rationalisation, he said the Cabinet had approved the matter and forwarded it to the Lieutenant Governor, but the issue remained pending.
“This is an issue directly linked to the future of our youth, but it is also being delayed, and no decision has been taken on it,” he said.
Wani stated that the government was informed that certain queries had been received from Delhi and that the matter was subsequently returned to the Cabinet for a response.
“We were told that there were some queries from Delhi and that the matter had been returned to the Cabinet,” he said.
He also questioned the delay in appointing the Advocate General, saying several matters were being held up. “The situation has reached such an extent that even the Advocate General has not been appointed yet. So, what are we protesting about?
“Those who are responsible for working should do their work,” he said.
The BJP protesters led by the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Legislative Assembly, Sunil Sharma, and General Secretary, J&K party affairs, Ashok Koul, gathered at the Lal Chowk city centre to start the protest march to gherao the civil secretariat in the Batmaloo area of the city.
Heavy deployment of police and security forces had been made at Lal Chowk and along the road leading to the secretariat.
The BJP protesters were stopped at Jahangir Chowk. The protesters tried to breach the barricade, but their attempts to breach the barricade were foiled, and they were prevented from moving towards the secretariat.
Speaking to reporters, LoP Sunil Sharma said that the large number of people joining the BJP protest was proof of the failure of the Omar Abdullah-led NC government. He alleged that the NC government has not fulfilled even one of the promises it made to the people in the party’s election manifesto.
