Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: August 13, 2008
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080061344
Rail and road traffic across the country was
badly hit on Wednesday as activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) blocked
roads and railway tracks to protest the cancellation of land transfer to the
Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB).
In the national Capital, VHP activists began
their protest at about 9 am, blocking roads in at least 20 places, including
ITO, Moolchand, Dwarka, Pitampura and Deepali Chowk. However, the group had
said on Tuesday that vehicles heading to schools and hospitals would not be
stopped.
VHP general secretary Parveen Togadia said:
"The central government must give the land to the Amarnath shrine board;
otherwise our protest will continue."
In Chhattisgarh, protestors laid siege to
dozens of busy squares in capital Raipur besides bringing traffic to a halt
at Bilaspur, Jagdalpur, Durg, Bhilai, Korba and Raigarh towns.
Protestors armed with sticks and iron rods
squatted on national highway No 43, connecting Raipur to the Bastar region,
as well as the Raipur-Bilaspur highway.
South East Central Railway (SECR) officials
said several trains were stuck at stations as activists of the VHP and the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) squatted on tracks at Bilaspur, Raigarh,
Raipur and Durg districts. Trains plying on the Mumbai-Howrah route were delayed
the most.
Chhattisgarh VHP president Ramesh Modi asked
people to come out of their houses and show their anger for "the insult
caused to the Hindu community by cancellation of the allotment of land to
the Amarnath Shrine Board".
VHP activists blockaded railway tracks in
Uttar Pradesh as well.
Bhupendra Dhillon, public relations officer
at the Railway Divisional Office in Agra, said: "The Shatabdi Express
coming here from Delhi was delayed by 44 minutes as protestors detained it
on the outskirts of the city."
Vishwa Hindu Parishad Uttar Pradesh secretary
Raghvendra said that the Shatabdi Express had been detained at Rohta canal,
20 kms from Agra.
In Himachal Pradesh, the two-hour protest
ended peacefully. However, schoolchildren and people heading to offices had
to face traffic jams.
"The protest was more or less peaceful.
No untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the state," Inspector
General of Police (Law and Order) S R Mardi said.
Ganesh Dutt, president of the BJP's Shimla
unit, claimed that the protest was successful as the traffic was blocked for
more than two hours on the Chandigarh-Shimla national highway near the Victory
Tunnel.
For the last two months, Jammu and Kashmir
has witnessed unparalleled strife along communal lines over the allotment
of 40 hectares of land in north Kashmir to the Amarnath shrine board, which
manages the pilgrimage to the cave shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva. The allotment
was revoked due to protests in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, which incensed
people in the Hindu-majority Jammu region.
