By IANS
Jammu : Shiv Sena activists Saturday disrupted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti's rally and pelted stones at the crowd, police said.
The incident occurred near Jhiri, about 20 km northwest of here. PDP workers resisted the Sena attempt to storm the rally, triggering clashes between the two groups.
The police cane charged the protestors and arrested some of them.
"We have taken some of Shiv Sena activists into preventive custody," a police official on the spot told reporters. Among those arrested was Jammu Shiv Sena president Anand Sharma.
The agitated mob accused PDP of stonewalling rehabilitation of refugees who migrated to Jammu from Pakistan after the partition of the sub-continent in 1947.
The PDP, at an all-party meeting in Srinagar last month, had objected to Congress's plan of granting citizenship rights to the refugees. Along with Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and other regional parties including National Conference, the PDP – a key partner in Kashmir's ruling coalition – said this would threaten the demographic structure of the state.
Undeterred by the protests and short disruption, Mehbooba Mufti addressed the rally and asked the refugees to question the Congress over their plight.
"The Congress is ruling both at the centre and in the state. Why refugees are not being rehabilitated is a question that should be directed toward the Congress, not us," she said, adding: "We are a regional party. We don't have much say in such matters."
More than 50,000 people who had migrated to Jammu six decades ago live here without citizenship rights. The refugees have the right to vote in the parliamentary elections but not in assembly elections as they are considered as citizens of India but not of Kashmir.
They are not entitled to own property in the state because Article 370 of the Indian constitution grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir by virtue of which only the natives of the state are entitled to citizenship rights.