Jammu, February 14 Scores of Congress workers and leaders, including party general secretary Syed Naseer Hussain and Jammu and Kashmir unit chief Tariq Hameed Karra, were detained here on Saturday as police stopped a march that they had organized, officials said.
Police took action after hundreds of Congress activists, including women, gathered at the Maharaja Hari Singh park and started marching towards the Lok Bhawan as part of the party's "Hamari Riyasat Hamara Haq" movement, seeking the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, and the "MGNREGA Bachao Sangram" (Save MGNREGA Movement).
"Hussain, Karra, AICC general secretary and Congress Legislature Party leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir, working president (of the Jammu and Kashmir unit) Raman Bhalla and AICC secretary and Punjab MLA Pargat Singh were among the many leaders detained by police near the Jewel chowk," said Ravinder Sharma, the chief spokesperson of the party in the Union Territory, to news agency PTI.
Condemning the police action, he said the Congress had planned a peaceful march to the Lok Bhawan to highlight public-welfare issues, but the party workers were taken away in police vehicles and detained in the district police lines for nearly an hour before being released.
Former Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Tara Chand, former ministers Mula Ram, Yogesh Sawhney, Jugal Kishore Sharma, G M Saroori, Majid Wani, Manohar Lal Sharma, Yash Pal Kundal, Gurbachan Kumari Rana, Shabir Ahmed Khan, MLAs Nizamuddin Bhat, Irfan Lone and Iftikhar Ahmed, and former MP T S Bajwa were also among those detained, Sharma said.
Police did not allow the Congress procession to cross the barricaded Jewel chowk en route to the Lok Bhawan, leading to a minor scuffle between the security personnel and the party workers.
Former minister Choudhary Lal Singh and his supporters were detained at the nearby Parade Ground after they managed to reach there following a different route, Sharma said.
Talking to reporters while being taken away, Hussain, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir, lashed out at the BJP-led Centre for "ignoring" the most popular and legitimate demand of the people of the Union Territory for the restoration of statehood.
He said the entire Congress leadership supports the struggle of the party's Jammu and Kashmir unit for the restoration of statehood.
He urged the Centre, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to immediately announce the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, saying people feel "cheated and betrayed" over the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) failure to fulfil its promise.
Karra lauded the Congress cadre for the massive show of strength and said the party will continue its struggle for the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
"The march was also to protest against the replacement of the MGNREGA with a new scheme of the Modi government that is against the interests of the country's rural poor," he said.
The BJP-led Centre recently replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Act.
