VHP workers protest, block movement of vehicles

Workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) took to the streets in Ahmedabad and other places in the state on Monday evening after word spread about the mysterious disappearance of the outfit's international president Pravin Togadia.

Members of the VHP blocked roads and disrupted traffic at several places after taking to the roads, and shouted slogans demanding immediate steps to locate the missing firebrand leader, who was known as 'Hindu Hriday Samrat' until a few years ago.

At Paldi, they stopped an AMTS bus and forced passengers to get down. They also stopped vehicles at other places, but were restrained by the cops. The protests followed reports that Togadia had been arrested by Rajasthan police from Ahmedabad in a decade-old case. However, city police later clarified that he has not been arrested, and that he was seen leaving the VHP office on his own.

VHP workers and leaders also protested in Rajkot, Surendranagar, Surat, Navsari, Kutch, Morbi, Junagadh, Jamnagar, and other places in the evening. In Vadodara, the VHP workers blocked movement of vehicles on the National Highway 8, resulting in queues of vehicles. Similar scenes were witnessed at some other places.

Ranchhod Bharwad, general secretary of the saffron outfit in Gujarat, asked cops to find the VHP leader at the earliest. "Pravin bhai Togadia is missing since this morning. The responsibility of his whereabouts and maintaining his security is the administration's. We have asked police to find him on priority basis," Bharwad said, while appealing the outfit's volunteers to keep their calm. On their part, the police said that they have formed four teams to search for the missing VHP leader.

Patidar reservation leader and a critic of the state government, Hardik Patel questioned the law & order situation in the state, saying that if a person with Z+ security cover can disappear like this, the state of a common man can only be imagined.