New Delhi: Shifting the scene to the Capital, members of the Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti (SASS) on Thursday courted arrest to protest the revocation of land allotted to the shrine board managing the pilgrimage to the shrine in the Kashmir Valley.
Amongst those arrested were Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Praveen Togadia and three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators in the Delhi Assembly O P Babbar, Jagdish Mukhi and H S Bali.
Members of the SASS, a conglomerate of various organisations spearheading the protests in Jammu, marched to the offices of the deputy commissioners of police (DCP) in six places at 9.30 hrs IST.
“Over 7,000 members of the Samiti courted arrest under the All India Jail Bharo (fill-the-jails) agitation,” SASS spokesperson Vinod Bansal said.
Meanwhile, thousands of agitators offered themselves for arrest in Orissa too, to demand restoration of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, the police said.
The activists under the SASS banner marched on the streets shouting slogans and staged protests against the Congress-led UPA Government.
They courted arrest after holding demonstrations in front of the offices of the collectors in most districts of the state, the police said.
"The number of activists courting arrest would be thousands," state SASS leader Subash Chouhan said.
The jail bharo (fill-the-jails) agitation in the state was part of the nationwide protest that has been launched by SASS, he said.
The BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS participated in the agitation. Those who courted arrest include BJP national vice president Jual Oram at the steel city of Rourkela, Chouhan said.
"The Central Government is surrendering to the diktats of Kasmhiri separatists and we are determined to fight against it," said Chouhan.
The Root Cause
The genesis of the trouble lies in the Jammu and Kashmir government's decision in May to allot 40 hectares of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board that manages the annual pilgrimage to the high altitude shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva. The decision led to massive protests in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. Its revocation July 1 ignited a counter agitation in the Hindu majority Jammu region.
Shutdowns, curfew and violent clashes have polarised Jammu against Kashmir and led to about 40 deaths in the state. Protests over the Amarnath land row have been held in several other states too.
The genesis of the trouble lies in the Jammu and Kashmir government's decision in May to allot 40 hectares of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board that manages the annual pilgrimage to the high altitude shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva.
The decision led to massive protests in the Kashmir valley. Its revocation on July 1 ignited a counter agitation in the Jammu region.
The trouble has continued to snowball since with shutdowns, curfew and violent clashes that have polarised Jammu against Kashmir.
The death toll in the state in the waves of protests and counter-protests now stands at around 40.
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