BJP leaders taken to Punjab, released (Third Lead)
By IANSMonday, January 24, 2011
PATHANKOT - Three senior BJP leaders - Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar - were taken into custody by police in Jammu Monday night to thwart their planned flag-hoisting in Srinagar and taken to Madhopur in Punjab on the border with Jammu and Kashmir where they were freed.
The three leaders were taken into custody after a nearly six-hour high drama at Jammu airport where they were kept locked to prevent them joining the party’s Ekta Yatra to hoist the national flag in Srinagar on Jan 26, which the state government has disallowed.
They were taken in a convoy to Madhopur Bridge, near Lakhanpur Barrier, and reached at around 10.50 p.m, party sources told IANS.
Madhopur is 15 km from Pathankot. The three were formally released by the Jammu and Kashmir Police at the border, district authorities said.
BJP national secretary general J.P. Nadda, the party’s Amritsar MP Navjyot Singh Sidhu, party Punjab unit chief Ashwani Sharma and two state ministers, Mohan Lal, transport minister, and Manoranjan Kalia, industries minister, were present at Madhopur to receive the leaders, a party official said.
Hundreds of BJP activists shouted slogans to greet them and denounced the Kashmir government for arresting them.
A party source said the three leaders are to stay the night at Pathankot and on Tuesday proceed to Lakhanpur, on the border, to join the rallyists entering Jammu and Kashmir.
A huge contingent of Jammu and Kashmir Police is stationed at Lakhanpur, 90 km from Jammu, to prevent the marchers from entering the state to go ahead with their unfurling of the national flag in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on Jan 26. The state government has not given permission for the rally as it could vitiate the atmosphere in the state that has seen heightened violence in the summer of 2010.
