Vijayvargiya, two other BJP leaders detained in Bengal

BJP NATIONAL GENERAL SECY VIJAYVARGIYA SAID THEY DID NOT RESIST BEING TAKEN TO THE CITY POLICE HQ

‘AS WE BELIEVE IN DEMOCRATIC PROTEST’

KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’S national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and two other party leaders were detained by the police on Friday ahead of a rally in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in south Kolkata.

“We don’t expect such behavior from the police. The way we were stopped and arrested is authoritarianism and unconstitutional. We were supporting the CAA in a democratic manner. The entire country is supporting it. We condemn the way the government is trying to stop us,” Vijayvargiya told journalists before boarding a police van.

The police clarified that the BJP leaders had been detained, not arrested. “We have detained the BJP leaders. They have not been arrested,” said Meeraj Khalid, deputy commissioner of

Kolkata Police (south division).

The leaders were detained for taking out the rally without police permission, officials said. Party leaders, however, asserted that it had informed the authorities about it.

The rally was scheduled to start from Tollygunge Phari around 1 pm and was scheduled to reach Hazra, about two km away. The police set up barricades to stop the rally.

Minor clashes also broke out between BJP supporters and the police.

Vijayvargiya said the BJP members did not resist being taken to the city police headquarters “as we believe in democratic protest”.

Vijayvargiya later tweeted a video recorded inside a police station. “We have been kept in a Kolkata Police lock-up for taking part in a pro-caa rally. Mukul Roy is with me. This is a historic lock-up in Kolkata in which freedom fighters like Shri Jatin Das and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose were [lodged],” the senior BJP leader said in the video.

Reacting to the incident, senior Trinamool Congress leader Firhad Hakim said the BJP was trying to disrupt law and order in West Bengal.

Later in the evening, police released Vijayvargiya, Mukul Roy and Joy Prakash Majumder.

The Mamata Banerjee government has started “autocratic” rule in West Bengal, but the BJP cannot be intimidated, Vijayvargiya said after his release from detention.