Ekta Yatra standoff: Tight security at Jammu & Kashmir border

Jammu: A day after BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj were forcibly escorted out of Jammu and sent to Madhopur in Punjab, the party is adamant to go ahead with its Ekta Yatra and hoist the tricolour in the heart of Srinagar on Republic Day.

BJP workers plan to hold a rally at Madhopur at 11 am today and then push into the state from Lakhanpur. But the Omar Abdullah government is determined not to let them get past there. Section 144 has been clamped in Lakhanpur and tight security is in place. Authorities say the BJP will not be allowed in.

At Srinagar airport, profiling of passengers has begun to stop the entry of BJP workers. Sources say curfew-like restriction will be imposed in the city shortly. Banihal tunnel has also been closed to prevent any movement of traffic from Jammu to Srinagar.

But hundreds of BJP youth workers have still managed to sneak into Jammu to march ahead towards Lal Chowk for the flag hoisting. They are putting up in community halls and say their resolve is firm and nothing can stop them from going ahead for the yatra.


On Monday, BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj were forcibly escorted out of Jammu after their arrest at the airport.

"Arrested - cars - separate - dont know where to?" tweeted Sushma Swaraj, as she was led away.

The two had already spent over five hours under virtual detention at the airport, and then on the pretext of taking them to a guest house, the state administration put the leaders in separate cars and escorted them in a police convoy to Madhopur in Punjab.

The entire route from the airport to Lakhanpur on the Jammu border was heavily guarded by J&K police. Video cameras were reported to be filming each of them so that their movements would be on record.

As the BJP leaders reached the J&K-Punjab border, a large contingent of BJP workers greeted them.

Strongly condemning the arrest, Arun Jaitley called the action "illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic."

"Section 144 cannot be used to deport anyone from a state...I don't know whether there is any rule of law left in the country. There is no power, no law that says you can physically throw people out of the state. There has to be some power under a law which this government doesn't have. The morcha will proceed ahead. The party will decide to take action. The party will go ahead with the rally," said Jaitley.

"We will re-enter Jammu with thousands of our workers. If they think that by stopping us like this they have accomplished what they wanted, I want to tell them that it's my challenge that we will enter Jammu and hoist the flag at Lal Chowk. It's also my warning to the government who have stopped us without any prior notice," added Sushma Swaraj.

This is the climax of a political drama which pits the BJP and its contentious Ekta Yatra against the government in Jammu and Kashmir, and at the Centre.

The BJP deployed its senior leaders to up the ante ahead of their Jammu rally, scheduled to be held today. The Jammu gathering is meant to be a major pit stop to energize thousands of youth activists who are heading from Punjab to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) with a one-point agenda: to unfurl the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Republic Day.

The separatists have announced a counter-march and the state government says it will not tolerate any move that could strain the fragile peace in the region.

Lal Chowk is where, in 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru promised Kashmir a plebiscite - the basis of separatist discourse.

The BJP says that by hoisting the flag at Lal Chowk, it wants to make the point to separatists that Kashmir is an integral part of India.

Repeatedly, the BJP has said that it has instructed its ranks to do nothing that could shatter the peace. Earlier on Monday evening, veteran leader LK Advani formally complained to the Prime Minister about Mr Jaitley and Ms Swaraj being trapped at the airport.

"I talked to the Prime Minister to register protest over the way authorities prevented Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, both Leaders of Opposition in two Houses of Parliament, from entering Jammu and threatened to deport them back to Delhi," Advani told PTI.

Home Minister P Chidambaram said, shortly after 6 pm, that he had phoned Mr. Jaitley and told him that the BJP leader "had made his point" and that he should return to Delhi. The Home Minister also stressed that a public meeting was "not possible." The BJP leaders responded that they should be arrested - but that barring them from entering the city of Jammu was illegal.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister issued a statement which did not name the BJP, but stressed that the Republic Day "is not an occasion to score political points, to embarrass state and local administrations, to create situations that could lead to entirely avoidable problems, or to promote divisive agendas."

As it tries to make its way into J&K, the BJP has run into severe criticism from one of its key allies - Nitish Kumar. "Given the kind of tension prevailing in the valley, this Yatra has no meaning and I don't support this," said the Bihar chief minister.


Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ekta-yatra-standoff-tight-security-at-jammu-kashmir-border-81396?cp