BJP's march halted at Ravi bridge

RAVI BRIDGE (LAKHANPUR):Hundreds of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha activists led by senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar were arrested on Tuesday after they tried to smash through a three-tier security grid besides rings of concertina wires. They were attempting to enter Jammu to head for Srinagar and unfurl the tricolour at Lal Chowk on Republic Day.
"The police arrested 11 BJP MLAs and around 500 workers the moment they crossed the one-km long Ravi bridge at around 5pm," said DIG Garib Dass.
Jaitley and Swaraj, who tweeted 'Vande Mataram' right through the day, told workers not to resort to violence and said although they were arrested, other party leaders in Jammu would leave for Srinagar to hoist the national flag.
"The Jammu & Kashmir government is preventing us from hoisting the flag. It should have provided us security. Instead, it's providing security to the separatists and has got us arrested. The flag will be hoisted at Lal Chowk tomorrow," promised Swaraj.
Jaitley said they were not going to leave Jammu before January 26. A batch of BJYM activists led by BJP MP Navjyot Singh Sidhu said they were planning to sit on dharna at the site until the evening of January 26. Sidhu later left for Amritsar.
Union home minister P Chidambaram appealed to the BJP to give up its "path of confrontation", adding, "There’s no justification to push a political agenda that will affect peace in Jammu & Kashmir."
Chief minister Omar Abdullah said, "We are not in a normal situation. We have to be cautions as a single spark could put the entire house on fire." Hundreds of gun-toting CRPF men and women took position beneath the bridge on the Ravi to stop the BJP workers. "We'll disallow unlawful assembly of people. We closed the national highway from Jammu to Lakhanpur, but local commuters were allowed to travel to Punjab via alternate routes," said additional superintendent of police, MDS Jamwal.
Former BJP president Rajnath Singh said, "All this indicates that the separatists have won against the nationalist forces." The police arrested the BJP workers after repeated warnings to them over loudspeakers to turn back and not enter Jammu. However, the marchers carrying national flags continued to raise slogans and walked over the bridge and crossed over to Jammu.
Earlier, the police, in civvies, arrested hundreds of BJP activists from Vijaypur railway station on Monday after pretending to be BJP workers. They asked party workers to get off for dinner at the station. There were barricades at all the seven entry points along Lakhanpur road in Kathua district. Riot control vehicles, water cannons and two companies of women CRPF were seen along the route.
Local commuters and passengers went through hardships. Govind Ram of Gandhi Nagar said he would not be able to attend a relative's marriage in Delhi on January 26 because the police would not let him drive to Delhi.
Seven BJP MLAs courted arrest when they took to the streets against the Jammu & Kashmir government's order stopping them from entering the state. Eight BJP leaders including Chaman Lal Gupta, Ashok Khajuria, and Jagdev Sopolia among others were allowed to board a flight to Srinagar. The leaders were later detained, the police said.
All schools and colleges in Jammu were closed. Prohibitory orders are in place along the highway from Kathua to Srinagar via Samba, Jammu, Reasi, Udhampur and Ramban to stop BJP activists from entering the Valley.
Besides Jammu-Srinagar national highway, all inter-district highways — Jammu-Rajouri, Rajouri-Poonch, Jammu-Doda, Doda-Kishtwar — were closed for two days starting Tuesday. About 700 vehicles carrying essential food items were held-up at Banihal on Tuesday.
BJYM president and MP Anurag Thakur, who was leading the 'Tiranga Yatra' along with Jaitley, Swaraj and Ananth Kumar, decided to hold a rally at Ravi bridge on Punjab-Jammu border and court arrest.