Srinagar: Legislator Engineer Rashid, who was thrashed on Thursday by two BJP MLAs for hosting a beef party, staged a protest here on Friday and along with his supporters tried to block the entry of other lawmakers into the Jammu and Kashmir legislature complex.
Dozens of supporters of the independent lawmaker from north Kashmir’s Langate constituency appeared at the gate of the state legislature complex on Friday morning and tried to block the entry of legislators into the complex.
They shouted slogans “Yahaan Kya Chelay Ga — Nizam-e-Mustafa” (Only the Sharia code will be allowed in Kashmir). The protestors were removed from the gates by police in order to make way for the legislators into the complex.
Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, later reached the gate of the nearby civil secretariat that houses the top offices of the state government, including those of the chief minister, his ministerial colleagues and senior bureaucrats.
Squatting on the road outside the civil secretariat gate, Engineer Rashid told reporters that the decision not to allow anti-beef ban bills in the assembly on Thursday was a “fixed match” for which the state government was responsible.
“(Chief Minister) Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has no right to continue in office after what happened yesterday (Thursday),” he said.
Engineer Rashid was thrashed on Thursday inside the state assembly by two ruling BJP lawmakers for hosting a beef party in Srinagar on Wednesday.
Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, who belongs to the BJP, condemned the incident saying it was unfortunate and he felt sorry for it.
The Congress on Friday staged a walkout from the state assembly after its adjournment motion to discuss border firing and safety measures taken for residents of border villages was disallowed by Speaker Kavinder Gupta.
The Congress legislators alleged that no issue was getting resolved or debated during the ongoing assembly session.