SHIMLA: Accusing the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh of stopping the BJP leaders from meeting the family of deceased Manohar Lal of Bhandal panchayat in Salooni sub division of Chamba district, the BJP state president Rajeev Bindal on Friday announced to hold protest demonstration in all 12 districts of state on Saturday.
Refuting the BJP claim, Chief Minister’s Principal Advisor (Media) Naresh Chauhan said that no one was stopped but BJP is playing politics on this issue by giving it a communal touch.
Rajeev Bindal said that the gruesome incident that happened in Chamba has hurt their hearts and they are all gathering only to get justice for Manohar Lal. He said that they pleaded a lot with the Chamba administration and met them about 4 times, waited for 1 hour and recited "Shri Ram Jai Jai Ram" but the administration did not allow them to go to the victim's family.
"We told the administration that if Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had gone to meet this family, they would have felt that some big person of the state had gone. But the administration did not let us go,” he said, adding that so the BJP has decided that tomorrow, on June 17, we will organize a sit-in demonstration at all the 12 district headquarters of the state and will also send a memorandum to the governor about this heinous massacre through the deputy commissioner.
He said that state government has not taken any concrete steps since the murder took place, it is because of the pressure of the protests by the local people that the government has arrested the culprit.
CM’s Principal Advisor (Media) Naresh Chauhan while addressing media persons in Shimla on Friday said that government has taken action in this matter as per the law and all the accused involved in the crime have been arrested and investigation is in the progress. He said that incident of burning the house of accused is not justified when the investigation is in progress.
He said that dead body of Manohar Lal was recovered on June 9 while BJP leaders are going to meet the family of deceased on June 16 which itself shows that BJP leaders are playing politics on this issue which is very unfortunate. He said that leader of opposition Jai Ram Thakur has remained chief minister of state and he knows what section 144 means. He said that people beyond certain numbers are not allowed to move in the area where section 144 is imposed.
Cabinet Ministers including Jagat Singh Negi, Rohit Thakur and Anirudh Singh in a joint statement lambasted the opposition for politicizing and playing dirty politics on the murder of a youth in Salooni Sub-division of district Chamba. They said that the BJP opposition is trying to flare up the issue despite the fact that the law and order agencies were doing a thorough probe into the incident and have even arrested those involved in the heinous crime.
They said that the police department after lodging an FIR immediately arrested the accused and were probing into the incident but the opposition was unnecessarily trying to hinder the investigation and also disobeying the law and order by gathering in numbers despite section 144 imposed and trying to disturb harmony and peace.
