Haryana Jat community to hold peaceful protests at CM Manohar Lal Khattar's govt functions over quota stir

Jat community members in Haryana have planned to hold peaceful protests at public functions attended by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his ministers for not implementing quota in government jobs and education and not withdrawing cases filed in connection with the 2016 quota stir. [caption id=“attachment_5028251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. Facebook[/caption] In June this year, the All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti (AIJASS) had announced that it would be holding dharnas from 16 August. The members of AIJASS claimed that Khattar himself had assured them of withdrawing all the cases registered against the community leaders except for 45 cases. However, they said, the state government later went back on its promise. After the deadline lapsed, the community members have now decided to hold protests at public functions of the chief minister and Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu in nine districts — Sonepat, Rohtak, Hisar, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Dadri, Bhiwani and Jhajjar, said AIJASS president Yashpal Malik. The protests will later be extended to six other districts, he said. Accusing the BJP-led Haryana government of betraying the community, Malik said, “We gave them enough time, we have been holding peaceful protests and dharnas for several months. However, they have failed to meet our demands, which the government itself has already accepted in previous rounds of talks. We are left with no other option now. As our fresh deadline has expired, we will be holding protests now.” Meanwhile, at a high-level meeting in Chandigarh last week, Haryana DGP BS Sandhu had said that all the divisional commissioners and superintendents of police would keep a tab on security arrangement. “Discussions would be held with sarpanches and members of Panchayat Samiti. If any untoward incident takes place, then the administration would strictly deal with it,” Sandhu had said in the meeting, according to an official release. “Nobody would be allowed to disturb the law and order in the state and strict actions would be taken against those who would do so,” he had said.