Mangalore: Many injured during BJP's rally at Jyothi Circle
According to police, about 3,000 people had congregated at the circle for which the permission had not been granted.
In Short
- Around 3,000 people had congregated at the circle for which the permission had not been granted.
- More than half a dozen people were injured after BJP workers charged through the police barricades.
- Yeddyurappa called the rally a success.
More than half a dozen people were injured after BJP workers charged through the police barricades. Rapid Action Force battalion from Coimbatore had also been called in at Jyothi Circle, in the heart of Mangalore city.
According to police, about 3,000 people had congregated at the circle for which the permission had not been granted.
Mangalore Police Commissioner T S Suresh himself was present along with his force and he reiterated that not a single BJP worker would be allowed to move out of the area to conduct the rally. "They had been granted permission to hold protest for couple of hours at the Nehru Ground, but by congregating here they are clearly defying the orders. We will see to it that no one crosses over from here," he said.
However, by noon the tempo of the party workers had risen and as soon as the state BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa arrived at the traffic junction and ordered his men to go ahead with the rally, all hell broke loose.
While party workers sat on their bikes to move ahead, they were pulled down from the vehicles and shunted to police buses parked in the area. Yeddyurappa was also detained along with hundreds of party workers.
In the scuffle that ensued between policemen and party workers policemen had to resort to lathi charge at a point. However, they could not stop the party workers from crossing over and walking over a kilometer to hand over a memorandum of their demands to the collectors office.
The collectors office itself bore a fortress like look. However, a little after ending the march to the collectors office, Yedyurappa called the rally a success and said that to meet their three demands senior party leaders will be meeting in couple of days to chalk out a detailed plan of executing further protests.
BJP claims that several RSS functionaries have been killed at the behest of few organizations and they had alleged that Congress-led government is not letting the police investigate. "These are terror attacks and these cases of deaths should be investigated by NIA," said Arvind Limbavali, a BJP MLA.
Limbavali also visited party workers who were injured in the incident. Though, most of the patients were discharged from the government-run hospitals one, Dr Mallikarjun Balikai, a BJP worker, was kept in the hospital for observation.