New agitation methods worry police in State

Agitators climbing atop water tanks, mobile phone towers and trees to get their demands met, has become a common feature in Uttarakhand with the law-enforcers remaining at a loss over how to arrest this disturbing trend. However Garhwal Range IG/DIG Sanjay Gunjyal said that the district police heads have been directed to take strict action against protesters who climbed atop towers to pressurise the administration to meet their demands. Instruction has been issued to the district police officers to lodge an FIR under appropriate sections of IPC against agitators who climb towers.

Statistics revealed that almost a dozen incidents occurred in the last one year wherein agitators from various unions like- Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) Contractual Workers, Uttarakhand Trained Unemployed Physical Education Teacher Union, Uttarakhand Purv Sainik Kalyan Nigam limited (UPNl) Employees’ Federation, Uttarakhand Physically Impaired Union, had climbed atop water tank, mobile tower and trees to meet their pending demands.

Earlier, the then Dehradun DM Chadresh Yadav had asked the department officers to remove stairs of the towers and tanks up to 14 feet to stop the protesters from going for such stunts. Though the directive was acted upon at least partially things remain unsolved. This is mostly because of the watchmen remaining off their guard especially during the night hours.

In second week of the February this year, demanding written assurance from the State Government on the decision taken during a recent Cabinet meeting regarding 10 per cent horizontal reservation in the State Government jobs for the identified statehood activists, three statehood activists all from Pauri district, are Bhuneshwari Negi, Savitri Negi and Bhuma Rawat who had climbed up trees at the Collectorate, Dehradun and they  continued with their hunger strike while remaining atop the trees. The administrative officers and police throughout the day kept on visiting the site to persuade the trio to get down.

In the latest that occurred on July 29, five contractual workers working under RMSA had climbed up water tank and claimed down after Government’s assurance.

Once they climb atop towers or trees things turn challenging for the administrative officers and police to bring them down. In all such cases, what is found is that police and administrative officers persuade the agitators to get down while rolling out assurances for a meeting with the State Government officials to have their grievances redressed.

 “With the increasing numbers of incidents wherein agitators a climbed atop of the tree, water tower, mobile towers to meet their demands in the Range areas, we have decided to hit hard on agitators," Gunjyal added.