Police lathicharge upon BJP activists over SASB land row

Lucknow, Jul 2: Police had to resort to mild lathicharge to quell a group of Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha activists, when they tried to break the security cordon and go near the Raj Bhawan here, demanding immediate withdrawal of the government order cancelling the additional land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Some of the activists received minor injuries in the police action and later, about 50 of them were arrested.

The activists were trying to lay seize of the Raj Bhawan, demanding immediate withdrawal of the J &K government's order cancelling the forest land given to the Shrine Board for constructing sheds for the pilgrims.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Lucknow, Akhil Kumar said police only used mild force to restrain the activists near the Raj Bhawan. He said some of them had been arrested after the incident.

On the other hand, BJP Yuva Morcha district president Abhijat Mishra said police used force on their peaceful demonstration. ''We only wanted to apprise the Governor about the wrong deeds of the J &K government, but the cops prevented us from doing this,'' he added.

UNI