Four BJP leaders detained at Srinagar airport
By IANSTuesday, January 25, 2011
SRINAGAR - Four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were Tuesday detained by police at Srinagar international airport to prevent them from taking part in the proposed flag-hoisting at Lal Chowk Wednesday.
Jugal Kishore, Garu Ram and Sham Choudhary, three sitting BJP MLAs from Jammu and Kashmir, and Pawan Khajuria, national vice president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), were detained immediately after they emerged from a commercial flight that landed in Srinagar airport in the afternoon.
“Yes, the four BJP leaders have been prevented from entering Srinagar city,” police said here.
Police have started profiling the incoming passengers at Srinagar airport Tuesday morning as part of the official exercise to prevent the BJP’s Tiranga Yatra that is scheduled to culminate with the unfurling of the national tricolour at Lal Chowk on Republic Day.
Tight security is being maintained at Lal Chowk since Tuesday morning in order to ensure that both the BJP and the separatist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) are prevented from creating a law and order situation in the city centre Wednesday.
Meanwhile, JKLF chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik has reportedly gone underground to evade arrest by the police on the eve of his party’s proposed Lal Chowk march.
The detention of the four BJP leaders comes even as over 300 party leaders, including Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, were detained in Lakhanpur, 90 km from Jammu, to prevent them going ahead with the march, which has not been allowed by the administration.
