Tricolour row: BJP files petition against detention of protestors in J-K

NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed a petition before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) here on Monday against the detention of their protestors in Jammu and Kashmir during the party’s recent ‘Ekta Yatra’.

BJP leader Navjyot Singh Sidhu and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) National President Anurag Thakur filed the petition on behalf of the party.

Thakur alleged that the police manhandled the volunteers while detaining them and applied third degree torture on them including the women too.

“We have filed a petition where we have given all the details that they were illegally detained. We have the medical reports of the volunteers who were detained. And we have requested actions against the Jammu and Kashmir officials and the police,” Thakur told reporters after filing the petition.

Sidhu, who was also there for filing the petition, came down heavily on the Central Government for stopping the Ekta Yatra in Kashmir.

“It has been for the first time that someone tried to hoist the tricolour in free India and his hands were broken. Women were burnt and given third degree torture. Without any procedures and by violating every law, our volunteers were stopped and were denied every facility,” said Sidhu.

“And today I want to ask the government. Is the government on the side of the separatists or the nationalists?” he added.

Earlier on January 26, Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested six Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and separatists, who were heading towards the Lal Chowk to hoist the national flag. cores of BJP activists including party veterans Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar and Anurag Thakur were also taken into custody under Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), while marching towards Jammu and Kashmir from Punjab.

BJP”s Rashtriya Ekta Yatra was expected to cover 3,037 km and enter the State on the afternoon of January 24 at Pathankot. (ANI)