By Sanjay Sharma, IANS
Bhopal : A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporter Tuesday climbed a 500-foot-high electricity tower here and threatened to commit suicide if the Ram Sethu was damaged to build a shipping canal. He was later persuaded to come down.
As a group of BJP activists and supporters were returning after participating in a demonstration against the Sethusamudram project, Vinod Palia, 35, climbed an electricity tower on the VIP road around 2 p.m. before anybody could realise what he was up to.
Perched on the tower supporting high-tension electric wires, Palia said he would commit suicide if the Ram Sethu was damaged, the police said.
A large crowd gathered at the spot and the police also joined in the efforts to make him come down.
Palia agreed to come down on the repeated pleas of district-level BJP leaders but insisted that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should assure him that no action would be taken against him and no case would be registered against him.
Meanwhile, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) employees laid a trap and four of them reached up to Palia, tied him and brought him down after about two hours.
BJP leaders said Palia was not a BJP worker.
The party has been agitating against the sea canal project to be built in the Palk Strait dividing India and Sri Lanka, saying it will damage Ram Sethu or Adam’s Bridge, believed to have been built during the Ramayana era. Scientists, however, say there is no evidence for the belief.