Pathankot road blocked at Bhogpur for 2.5 hr

Just a day ahead of the hearing in the Punjab and Haryana High Court regarding objections being raised regarding the ongoing installation of a bio-CNG plant at Bhogpur, residents of the town staged a protest at the main T-point for about 2.5 hours.

Owing to the protest, the highway leading to Pathankot and Jammu from Jalandhar was blocked and commuters had to use alternative routes to cross the passage. The protest was led by Congress MLA from Adampur Sukhwinder Singh Kotli even as leaders of all parties, farmers, market association, social and religious organisations joined him.

The agitators put up mats on the road and dug up tents, blocking the highway completely at 10:30 am. Kotli said, "We are not fighting here for getting any political mileage. It is a fight for safeguarding the lives of our future generations. The government and the administration is bent on going ahead with the construction of the plant but we cannot let our air and groundwater get polluted."

The MLA said, "If this plant comes up, our crops will get contaminated. The clothes hung outside for drying will get covered with soot. We have to carry out this stir or else this plant will ruin our lives. Wherever this kind of a plant has been proposed, residents have held protests and objected to its installation".

As the protest was on, several SHOs from Bhogpur and nearby police stations, DSPs, SP, headquarters, Sarabjit Rai and SDM, Adampur, Vivek Modi reached the spot and tried to convince Kotli to wind up dharna. Modi and Rai told Kotli that since a terror attack had happened in Pahalgam, it would not be advisable to hold a dharna and block the road passage for anyone travelling to and fro.

At 1 pm, the leaders lifted the dharna. Kotli told everyone that he was leaving for Chandigarh from the site as he had to meet the lawyer ahead of the hearing in the court tomorrow.