Protesters try to hoist national flag at PDP office in Jammu
Jammu: Protesting against PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s remarks on the national flag, a group of youths took out a march outside the party office here on Sunday and tried to hoist the tricolour atop the building but were stopped by police.
The incident came days after the Peoples Democratic Party president said she is not interested in contesting elections or holding the tricolour till the constitutional changes enforced on August 05 last year are rolled back.
Mufti had said she would hold the national flag only when the separate flag of the erstwhile state is restored.
Amid chants of “Tiranga ka apmaan nahi sahenge (will not tolerate the insult of tricolour)” and anti-PDP sloganeering, the youths led by one Amandeep Singh came on two-wheelers and attempted to hoist the national flag on the PDP headquarters.
However, they were stopped by the police personnel deployed at the PDP office, officials said, adding the protesters later dispersed peacefully.
“We have no affiliation with any right-wing party. We are nationalist by core and will not tolerate any insult to the tricolor, which is our pride and honour,” Amandeep Singh told reporters.
Singh had on Saturday hoisted the national flag on the boundary wall near the main entrance of the PDP office and had a heated argument with two senior party leaders, including former legislator Firdous Ahmad Tak.
Before leaving, Singh had said that he would return with more youths on Sunday to unfurl the national flag at the building.
Meanwhile, several ABVP activists were briefly detained on Sunday after they staged a protest outside the PDP office here, officials said.
Over half-a-dozen ABVP activists, carrying national flags, appeared outside the heavily guarded PDP office at Gandhi Nagar and broke the police cordon to throw green paint on Mufti’s picture on the billboard near the entrance of the office, they said.
They said the slogan-shouting protesters made repeated attempts to enter the building and hoist the tricolour but were initially stopped by police personnel who took several of them into preventive custody briefly.
However, later some of them were allowed by policemen to hoist the national flag at the iron fence.
Pertinently, after the BJP demanded her arrest over alleged “seditious” remarks, Mehbooba Mufti said in a tweet on Saturday that the Indian flag stands for diversity and peaceful co-existence among all.
“If anyone has insulted the Tiranga it is BJP that persecutes minorities and sows division and hatred…,” the former chief minister alleged.
On Saturday, the Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration that is fighting for the restoration of special status to Jammu and Kashmir met in Srinagar and named National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah as its chairperson and Mehbooba Mufti as its deputy chairperson.
Abdullah asserted that the seven-party alliance is an anti-BJP platform and not an anti-national grouping.
