BSP groups clash over garlanding of Ambedkar's statue in Jalandhar

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 14

A clash took place among the youth, some of them leaders and workers of Bahujan Samaj Party, during the garlanding of the statue of Dr BR Ambedkar at Ambedkar Chowk here on Thursday morning.

The incident took place when Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was in city and was participating in the state-level programme to mark Ambedkar Jayanti at Bootan Mandi just about 2 km away. The incident took place when a huge group of BSP leaders and workers led by Balwinder Kumar was approaching the statue site. As his group went up the chowk and was about to garland the statue, he was stopped by some people.

The members of the other group, which is learnt to be a breakaway BSP group, allegedly slapped one of the supporters of Balwinder Kumar. At this, Kumar got enraged and a clash took place just along the statue.

Since the police did not want any untoward incident to take place at the time when the CM was around, they tried to disperse the crowds during which they used their canes. Some of them were also manhandled. The anti-riot police had to be deputed at the site to ensure that no such unsavoury incident got repeated in the day.

Balwinder Kumar alleged: “A worker of the party, who now seemed to be working at the behest of other parties, had attempted to take control of the statue area today. He had organised his own programme at the centre of the roundabout and was even giving speeches. Our agenda was not to disturb his programme and instead simply garland the statue and return. But when he tried to stop us, we opposed it as it was not right on his part.”

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