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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Denied permission, YFN blames BJP for failure of Lalchowk flag hoisting

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, May 15: Youth For the Nation (YFN), a group of activists which had planned a peace march from Srinagar to Jammu on May 16th, has not been permitted by the authorities to hoist the Indian Tricolour at Lalchowk even as it held BJP alone responsible for the failure of its programme.

YFN’s head Nirmandeep Singh told a local news agency on Friday that the authorities had denied permission to hoisting of the Indian national flag at Lalchowk with the argument that it could “hurt sentiments of the Kashmiri people”. Significantly, Singh blamed only the BJP in the ruling coalition for failing its programme, while alleging that a number of the group’s activists had been got arrested and detained in Jammu. Without mentioning name, Singh alleged: “I am surprised that the same leaders who encouraged us for May 16 march, stopped us and got us arrested few days back”.
“BJP forced us to call off our march of flag hoisting. It was the same BJP whose youth leader Anurag Thakur in 2013 started a march from Jammu to hoist the Indian flag in Srinagar. That time BJP was out of power and could not succeed in its march as the then government did not permit it. Now denying permission to the same activity has only exposed the BJP which is the ruling party in J&K today”, Singh said.

Singh claimed that hundreds of activists from Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana, Maharashtra, UP and West Bengal had arrived in Jammu to participate in the flag hoisting and peace march. “We have now suspended our march and our activists have returned to their respective places. Indian patriots are shocked to know that government didn’t allow Indian Tricolour to unfurl at historic Lalchowk”.

Meanwhile, the ruling PDP’s Chief Spokesman Dr Mehboob Beg said that some elements were hell-bent to trigger chaos in already perturbed Kashmir valley with hoisting of the Indian national flag on Saturday. “May 16 is neither Republic Day nor Independence Day. Why then are some elements trying to hoist the Tricolour in Kashmir?” Beg told a news agency.
Beg maintained that such an act could “further destabilize the situation and again put the Valley on the brink of another trouble that too at a time when it is gradually moving towards peace and stability”. 

“I fail to understand why some parties are this much adamant to hoist a flag at Lalchowk on May 16. What do they want to prove through it? We are not against the hoisting of the Tricolour, but why now?” Beg asked, adding that such a move would be “disastrous” and would disrupt law and order.

 “This act must be stopped in the larger interest of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Under the garb of such an action, there are elements which try to disrupt the situation in the Valley”, Beg asserted.

YFN had announced the programme of the national flag hoisting after some separatist hardliners staged a series of pro-Pakistan demonstrations while shouting pro-Pakistan slogans and waving the Pakistani national flags in Kashmir last month.
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