Written by S S Nadar
Mumbai | 11 March 2023 03:49 IST

Overnight on Friday, the police had picked up the three protesting widows from outside Sachin Pilot’s residence in Jaipur and shifted them back to their towns, while some of the supporters were lodged in the SEZ police station in Bagru on Jaipur outskirts.

The BJP on Friday announced a protest on Saturday after its Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Lal Meena allegedly sustained injuries in a clash with police when he was on his way to meet a widow of the Pulwama terror attack martyr who has been demanding jobs for kin.

Overnight on Friday, the police had picked up the three protesting widows from outside Sachin Pilot’s residence in Jaipur and shifted them back to their towns, while some of the supporters were lodged in the SEZ police station in Bagru on Jaipur outskirts.

Responding to the developments, former deputy CM Sachin Pilot, who was in Tonk on Friday, took a dig at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot saying that one shouldn’t let their ego get in the way. “If there are certain demands, then they can be fulfilled. A message shouldn’t go in the country that we are not even ready to listen to the brave hearts. Whether you agree or disagree (with their demands) comes later. But one shouldn’t let their ego get in the way of hearing someone out…the matter could have been addressed in a better way.” He said that the way police treated them can’t be accepted and that a probe must be conducted and action must be taken.

“Why is the government so afraid of the three brave hearts that the police picked them up overnight? Don’t know where they have been taken. The women are only pleading to meet Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ji. Why is the Chief Minister so nervous to hear them out?” Meena said in a tweet, referring to the three widows.

Subsequently, Meena left for Chomu, also on Jaipur's outskirts, to meet one of the windows. While he claimed that he was on his way to Samod Balaji temple, police said that he was headed to one of the widows in Amarsar, about 25 kilometres away from the temple.

However, Meena was stopped by the Samod police and pushed inside the vehicle of SP, Jaipur Rural, Rajeev Pachar. Meena alleged that he was manhandled by the police and that his clothes got torn in the process. “I was going to visit Samod Balaji with my supporters, but police from Samod police station stopped me, abused and manhandled me. Is it such a big crime to stand with the brave-hearts that the @ashokgehlot51 government is behaving like this with a public representative?” he said in a tweet, accusing Rajasthan Police of ‘forgetting all courtesy’.

While Pachar’s vehicle initially went towards Sikar, it eventually took a U-turn. Meena was subsequently admitted to Govindgarh CHC, from where he was referred to SMS Hospital in Jaipur. “The police tried to kill me, but I was saved by the blessings of the brave hearts, the youth, the unemployed and the poor. I am hurt,” he said in another tweet.

At SMS, BJP state president Satish Poonia, Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore, BJP’s RS MP Ghanshyam Tiwari, former BJP minister and BJP state president Arun Chaturvedi were among those who reached out to inquire about his well-being.

The widows have been protesting for over a week demanding a change in rules so that their relatives, and not just their children, can get government jobs on compassionate grounds. Their other demands include the construction of roads and the installation of statues of the martyrs in their villages.