Police tear gas : arrest 2200 Congressmen in Gandhinagar

Gandhinagar, Mar 8 (UNI) About 2,200 Congress activists were arrested today as they tried to break the police cordon near Info city after a Dalit rally turned violent, leaving several people injured.

Leader of the Opposition Arjan Mothwadia, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee President Bharat Solanki, B K Hariprasad, General Secretary, AICC and incharge of Gujarat affairs and Mr Mukul Vasnik, former General Secretary, AICC were arrested after addressing the rally. All were released later.

Several persons including Congress workers, policemen including a few women constables and three journalists were injured when police used force to disperse the Congress workers near Info city on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar state highway.

The police lobbed tear gas shells and lathi-charged several participants of the rally after the horse-mounted police tried to stop the 20,000 strong rally near Info City as the prohibitory orders were in force due to the ongoing assembly session.

As the police prevented the workers to move ahead, the mob turned hostile and began throwing stones at the police force. The police had to lob tear gas shells and resort to lathicharge to disperse the mob.

A police sub-inspector Brahmbhatt was injured and several others sustained minor injuries in the stone-pelting.

About 2,000 policemen were deployed to ensure no untoward incident took place in the Dalit rally, which was organised by the Gujarat Congress to express their anger against the astrocities on Dalits.

The police made three tier security arrangements and the entire 12 km road from the Ahmedabad airport was sealed. All routes towards Gandhinagar were closed due to heavy crowds of rallyist.

Gujarat Assembly Speaker Mangal Das Patel referred the action of former Congress Rajya Sabha MP Raju Parmar to a special privilege committee as he considered that sending a written note to MLAs by him amounts to ''interference in the proceedings of the house''.

Mr Parmar has reportedly sent a written note to Chief Whip of Congress legislative party in which he had asked MLAs to raise the said issue in the Assembly.

(Eds pick suitably from the earlier series) UNI