Mangalore: The Brave Janatha Party’s Yuva Morcha members who had gone to Jammu via Bangalore, Maharashtra and MP are back in Mangalore, and seven of them met the Press here today to relate their woes and sufferings, apart from their brave act of hoisting the Indian National Flag on Jan.26 morning in Kathua, inside Hindu Jammu province.
They were prevented by arrest and manhandling by J&K police who got wind of their possible exploits in Kashmir valley to hoist the flag in Lal Chowk in Srinagar. Their top leaders were stopped on reaching Jammu Tawi earlier on Jan.25.
The YM volunteers had left Mangalore from Sangha Nikethan on Friday, Jan 21 and reached Yeshwantpur, a Bangalore suburban terminal station, from where their train took off to Jammu via Gulbarga.
They faced several obstacles like chain-pulling dark compartments, unclean toilets and misleading Railway officials and police, before they crossed Maharashtra from Gulbarga. Seven persons from YM Mangalore reached Jammu and returned to the coastal city (Mangalore Central RS) this morning and taken in a procession to BJP local office in Kodialbail.
They were Kishore Kumar Bhandary, Rajesh Shetty Pajeerugutthu, Vasanth Pujari, Prithviraj U.B., Ullas Bhandary, Raghuveer, Dr.Bharathraj Shetty and others, who were felicitated at the JJ Soudha in a ceremony.
The meeting was addressed by BJP national council member Monappa Bhandary, who louded the youngmen on their courageous achievement of hoisting the National flag in Kathua, Jammu on Jan.26, 2011. Rajesh Shetty, YM general secretary, speaking for his group, stated that the SW Railway officials pretended to protect the YM volunteers but actually harassed them and turned their train back to Gulbarga, and back to Bangalore. They halted the returning train at Solapur by pulling the chain, he added. He also referred to police lathi charge on them at Gangapura station.
Corporator Srikar Prabhu, leader Pushpalatha Gatti of DK unit and treasurer A.Ramesh were present at the meeting.
Lawyer Raghavendra welcomed the gathering. YM member Mahesh conducted the proceedings.