Protests mar CM’s visit to Rohtak

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, February 15

A black-flag protest by farmers and women’s rights activists and a demonstration by sarpanches were held during the visit of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to Rohtak today.

Activists of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association, All-India Kisan Sabha, Nagrik Manch and students’ union staged the black-flag protest in front of the MDU gate to press for the sacking of Sandeep Singh, accused of sexually assaulting a junior woman coach.

Farmers, sarpanches, students, women target govt

• All-India Democratic Women's Association, All-India Kisan Sabha, Nagrik Manch and students' union sought sacking of Sports Minister Sandeep Singh, accused of sexually assaulting woman coach
• The Haryana Sarpanches Association protested against the government for ‘imposing’ e-tendering regime
• INSO, student wing of the JJP, sought probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and other charges against MDU VC
• Girl students wanted end to eve-teasing while commuting by general buses and a special bus service for them

Members of the Haryana Sarpanches Association also held a protest demonstration at the university gate against the e-tendering regime. The protesting activists and sarpanches were taken in preventive custody by cops deployed there. They were detained at a local police station.

The spate of protests did not end here. As soon as Khattar started addressing the gathering at Tagore Auditorium on the MDU campus, a group of girl students from a local government college stood up and started raising slogans against the BJP government, disrupting the programme.

The girl students, who were carrying posters, maintained that they face inconvenienced and eve-teasing while commuting by general buses and had been demanding a special bus service for girls, but their demand had not been accepted.

The protesting girl students were also taken away to a police station by a police vehicle. Later, activists of INSO, the student wing of the state regime’s coalition partner JJP, also met Khattar and handed him a memorandum demanding a probe into the allegations of sexual misconduct and other charges against MDU vice-chancellor Prof Rajbir Singh.

Meanwhile, the police registered a case against two students, Deepak and Rahi, under Sections 114, 153 and 34 of the IPC for raising slogans during the address of the CM at Tagore Auditorium on the MDU campus. The FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by a police official.

The CM had come to the university to participate in the bicentennial celebrations of Maharshi Dayanand. Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat presided over the event.

Khattar said Maharshi Dayanand fought against the foreign rule as well as the social evils prevalent during his era. “The ideology of Maharshi Dayanand and Arya Samaj founded by him inspired innumerable people for freedom, which led the country to Independence,” he stated.

Khattar also inaugurated an extension building of Vivekananda Library and laid the foundation stone of Dayanand Centre for Vedic and Yogic Studies and University Institute of Public Health Sciences.

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