50,000 rail blockaders held
NZPA-AP New Delhi The police arrested about 50,000 people who were staging sit-down strikes yesterday on railway tracks across the Indian state of Kerala to protest against alleged Government neglect of the southern state.
The United News of India said in a report from Trivandrum, the capital, about 2000 km south of New Delhi, that the demonstration had forced the cancellation of several trains and delayed others for hours. The number of arrests had been compiled from police reports in various districts, the agency said. The protest was organised by the Marxist-led Democratic Youth Federation of India, which says that Rajiv Gandhi’s Government had ignored Kerala’s development needs.
In other developments, authorities in the state of Gujarat had enacted a tough law allowing the police to detain people for up to a year without trial to curb increasing violence over the states minorities policy, U.N.I. said.
The prevention of antisocial activities ordinance took effect on Sunday and also covers bootlegging, drug trafficking, and prostitution.
The western state has been hit almost daily by rioting and arson since March, when students began protesting against a Government proposal to increase college and Government job quotas for the socially disadvantaged. A girl, aged six, was shot dead during fighting on Saturday and protesters burned down two Government buildings on Sunday. The Home Minister, Mr Shankarao Chavan, said that the Government had received reports that Sikh terrorists planned attacks beginning in early June to mark the anniversary of the army assault on the Golden Temple, the holiest of Sikh shrines. Mr Chavan said that the police in New Delhi had tightened security throughout the city and neighbouring areas for “Genocide Week,” the name Sikh militants have given the assault on the temple at Amritsar, in the northern State of Punjab.
U.N.I. said that security forces throughout Punjab and the neighbouring state of Kashmir also had been alerted.
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Press, 29 May 1985, Page 10
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31750,000 rail blockaders held Press, 29 May 1985, Page 10
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