Sri Sri welcomed with slogans and protests in J&K
: Angry protesters, some shouting pro Azadi slogans, forced spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to cut short his speech at a ‘peace conference’ here on Saturday.
Sri Sri, the Art of Living founder said he had been invited by ‘some well-meaning people of the Valley’ to speak at the ‘Paigham-e-Mohabbat’ (Message of Love) function, organised on the banks of the Dal Lake. He did not name those people.
Thousands, including youngsters and women, had gathered for the function.
Just six minutes into his speech, people started leaving in droves and some of them shouted pro Azadi slogans.
“Whenever I have come I see the pain and suffering and despite that I see the reflection of love here… I am yours and you are mine. Together we have to work for the mitigation of this pain to generate an atmosphere of peace here…Thinking about the past will make us sad. We should move on. We have that resilience and think about our future,” Sri Sri said minutes before the commotion started.
The spiritual leader cut short his speech and the guests on the dais left in a hurry. Groups of people
SRINAGAR
HT talked to said that they were brought into the function by “deceit”. “We were lured to come here for cricketing kits. Don’t we know who this Ravi Shankar is? If our neighbours and friends come to know we had come here, it would be so embarrassing. Everybody knows how these things are politicised,” a pharmacy student said.
Later, Sri Sri addressed a press conference.
Later, a businessman named Sheikh Imran who also has a little known party called the JK Peoples’ Alliance, said that he along with a group of people had invited Sri Sri to the function.
“People have issues and nobody was there to hear them so we invited somebody who is spiritual...” Imran said. He denied that people were fooled into coming to the event. He said that people were told that there would be ‘advocacy of their problems’.