By IANS,
Bangalore : Thousands of school and college students in this tech hub and across Karnataka Wednesday took out rallies supporting social activist Anna Hazare and seeking stiff measures to curb corruption.
Waving the national flag and shouting slogans “Anna Hazare jai”, “Anna naavu nimmottige iddeve (Anna we are with you) and “End corruption”, the students marched through the roads of main towns in all the 30 districts of the state.
For the second day Wednesday, former Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde joined hundreds of people – students, writers, workers, housewives, farmers, software professionals, senior citizens – to express solidarity with Hazare in Bangalore.
People from various walks of life braved rain in Bangalore to gather at Freedom Park in city centre, protesting against Hazare’s arrest and demanding a stronger Lokpal Bill with the office of the prime minister also within its ambit.
School and college students in various parts of the city held rallies and hundreds of them marched to Freedom Park — the centre of protests in Bangalore.
Rallies were also held by students in Bidar in Karnataka’s northern tip, Shimoga and Davangere in central part, Mysore in the south and Mangalore and Udupi on the west coast.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) condemned the arrest of Hazare and demanded immediate resignation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government.
Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda said there was no justification for detaining Hazare and preventing him from staging a peaceful protest.
His predecessor B.S. Yeddyurappa, who quit July 31 after being indicted for corruption by the Lokayukta, demanded an apology from the prime minister for preventing Hazare from exercising his democratic rights.
Hazare was arrested and later released in Delhi Tuesday. However, the anti-corruption crusader refused to leave Tihar Jail till he was allowed to go on hunger strike without any conditions.