Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 15: Protesting against denial of free ration and application of National Food Security Act (NFSA), the Kashmiri migrants putting up at Jagti township held a protest demonstration today and tried to block the Jammu-Srinagar Bye-Pass for some time.
The National Highway was restored with the timely intervention of police team headed by SDPO Nagrota Bharat Bushan and SHO Police Station Nagrota. There was jostling and scuffle between police and migrants when the former tried to evict them from NH due to which one woman was injured also.
The call for today’s protest was jointly given by the various social organizations of the camp and protestors raising slogans against the Government demanded that ration be supplied to relief holders as per old scale as NFSA was not applicable to them.
The protestors while criticizing the Government of brining migrants under the NFSA said that the relief and ration given to them falls under Security related expenses and hence they can’t be brought under the NFSA as migrants putting up in camps neither possess any property nor have any other source of income and they are totally dependent on cash relief.
The protestors demanded that the migrants be given the free ration as per old scale and government should frame a concrete policy for their one time settlement and rehabilitation instead of humiliating them on one account or the other.
The representatives of various organizations who took part in the protest included Anu Kaul, Satish Thaplo, Sunil Raina, Vijay Kaul, Sunil Pandita, Inderji Labroo, Shadi Lal Pandita, A K Sadhoo etc. They alleged that lady was forcibly dragged by police, which resulted into her injury.
However the SDPO Bharat Bushan denied this saying police maintained utmost restrain despite the fact that migrants resorted to highway blockade. He said there was a jostling between police and protestors at the National Highway as police tried to lift the migrants trying to block highway.
Inder Ji Labroo was also detained by police and later released in the evening.
Later the AC Relief Rakesh Sharma also reached the spot and he assured the migrants that the problem will be solved by Saturday.
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