Man detained for trying to hoist National Flag in Srinagar

Srinagar: A person from Haryana was detained on Saturday when he tried to hoist Tricolour at historic Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the summer capital, official sources said.

They said the person, who identified himself as Deepak Sharma, a resident of Haryana and worker of Akali Dal, was raising slogans and tried to hoist the National Flag at Gantaghar, Lal Chowk. However, he was immediately overpowered by police and put into a vehicle before the disturbance in the area.

He was later taken to police Kothibagh police station. Attempt to hoist the Tricolour in Srinagar comes at a time when members of the Sikh community provided shelter, food and transport facilities to Kashmiri students and traders in different parts of the country following reports about attack on them after the Pulwama attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) on CRPF convoy in which over 44 personnel were martyred on February 14.

 However, this is not the first time that such an attempt was made in Lal Chowk during the past about three decades.  Last year, about a dozen activists of  Shiv Sena tried to hoist the tricolour at the Gantaghar but were detained by the police.

In 1992, when militancy was at its peak in Kashmir, the then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi, who was accompanied by some party colleagues, unfurled tricolor at the historic place on the occasion of Republic Day (RD) amid firing of rockets by militants in the city.(UNI)