Anti-reservation outfit condemns suicide attempts

New Delhi, May 28 (UNI) An anti-reservation outfit has condemned the suicide attempts by two young men, including an MBBS student of Orissa, yesterday, saying such an extreme protest would sabotage the ongoing stir which is at its peak now all over the country.

''Suicide attempts will provoke other students in the country to resort to suicide bids as such a suicide spree during the anti-Mandal times in 1989 had jeopardised the whole issue of anti-reservation,'' Arakshan Sampati Abhiyan (Anti-Reservation Campaign) Convenor R K Bhardwaj said in a statement here today.

''To burn oneself alive is the most heinous and painful step and no religion allows it,'' said Mr Bhardwaj, adding that agitating students must protect their life by maintaining restraint without losing sight of the cause.

He said the intensity of the anti-reservation campaign should be maintained with consistency till the government is forced to withdraw its move.

''The best thing would be to oust the present political dispensation out of power in the next General Elections. Mandal architect V P Singh is already facing a political death. It is going to happen with Arjun Singh who, at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, has tried to become messiah of Mandal II,'' he added.

Mr Bhardwaj said all reservations should be abolished; instead, all poor, irrespective of their caste and religious affiliations, should be given free facilities to promote merit among them as ''it used to happen in our ancient 'gurukuls' where the rich and the poor used to get the same treatment.'' Making an impassioned plea to to parents to the anti-reservation campaign, he said this was the last chance to fight against the reservation menace. ''If we lose this opportunity, youths from the general category would face dark future for ever.'' He also thanked MPs Navjot Singh Siddhu and Swain Kharbel, industrialists Ratan Tata and Rahul Bajaj, commerce bodies FICCI, CII and IMA for speaking against reservation and espousing the cause of merit, and asked the agitators to take their help in their campaign.

''Only on the basis of merit, India can become a world leader,'' he said.

UNI/SKS PA VV1203