Ahir protest march peaceful; no disruption of traffic: Gurugram police

Gurugram: The protest march by Ahir community members to demand their regiment in the Indian Army passed off peacefully near the Kherki Daula toll plaza on National Highway (NH-48) on Sunday, police said

Gurugram: The protest march by Ahir community members to demand their regiment in the Indian Army passed off peacefully near the Kherki Daula toll plaza on National Highway (NH-48) on Sunday, police said.

Gurugram, India-December 18: Members of Ahir Sanyukt Regiment Morcha during a protest march having a demand to get a separate regiment for the Ahir community in the army at National Highway-48 service road near Kherki Daula Toll plaza, in Gurugram, India, on Sunday, 18 December 2022. (Photo by Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)**To go with Debashish Karmakar's story

Community leaders also submitted a memorandum to the Gurugram district administration, seeking time to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Rajnath Singh on the issue.

The leaders of the Sanyukt Ahir Regiment Morcha also addressed a ‘mahapanchayat’ at their protest site near the toll plaza and passed a resolution that those from the community holding positions in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) will resign within a fortnight if their demand to meet the Prime Minister and defence minister is not fulfilled and they will organise protests against the two political parties.

The morcha also demanded that cases against the 30 Ahir activists registered at different police stations in Haryana for alleged involvement in the protests must also be withdrawn.

Morcha convener Arun Yadav said that they started their foot march ‘Yadav jodo yatra’ from Nasibpur in Narnaul on December 10, which crossed several villages in southern Haryana and the participants finally reached the protest site on Sunday for attending the mahapanchayat that began at 11am and ended at about 4.30pm.

“We waited for the government authorities to reach the spot to submit our memorandum, but none arrived. Then we started our march towards the toll plaza in a bid to block it at about 4.30pm. It was then that a sub-divisional magistrate approached us and accepted our memorandum. Traffic on the Delhi-Jaipur carriageway was affected for 10-15 minutes during the incident,” Yadav said.

More than 350 police personnel were deployed around the protest site and the toll plaza to maintain law and order and thwart any attempt to disrupt peace.

Manbir Singh, deputy commissioner of police (Manesar), said that they were on alert but not a single untoward incident took place.

DCP Singh said that traffic remained unaffected.