New Delhi, February 22
Outsmarting security officials, a section of protesting pro-Telengana lawyers who had assembled at the Jantar Mantar today managed to reach the gates of Parliament and raised slogans before they could be stopped.
About 200 agitating lawyers walked towards Parliament during the protest, without catching the attention of the police. They reached the Parliament House annexe raising
pro-Telengana slogans.
The police had to detain 400 protesters as a rear-guard action, who were let go later in the evening.
According to S Dash, DCP (New Delhi), the protesters had bifurcated into three sections, even as a large fraction sat at Jantar Mantar.
“Most of them sat at Jantar Mantar, while a group sat on dharna before Parliament Street police station. The third group of about 100 lawyers moved towards the metro station and in the process, via, Patel Chowk tried to reach the Parliament gates. However, they were stopped in time and 400 of them were detained later,” said Dash.
Hundreds of lawyers from the 10 Telangana districts had gathered under the aegis of the Telengana Lawyers Joint Action Committee (JAC) at Jantar Mantar, for the ‘Chalo Parliament’ demonstration.
The lawyers demanded the tabling of Telengana State bill in the upcoming budget session of Parliament.
They managed to block the traffic near Parliament for nearly two hours, even as the police tried to persuade them to end their demonstration since a religious procession was
to be taken out on Parliament Street.
As a final resort, security personnel had to detain some of these protesters. A group of protesters also blocked a police van from proceeding to the police station with the arrested agitators, while four agitators fell unconscious.
The commotion created by the protesters and the religious procession passing through the Connaught Place area led to massive traffic jams in the area later in the evening.
