 Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 1: Seeking Schedule Tribe (ST) status for Koli's , Jammu Kashmir National Panther Party (JKNPP) workers including the members of Koli community today staged a massive protest demonstration at Exhibition Ground Jammu.
The activists of the party along with Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, Harsh Dev Singh raised slogans against the BJP and the State government for ignoring the community. "It is yet another venomous doze of discrimination administered to the divested Jammu region", said Harsh Dev adding that koli community which inhabited the far flung areas of District Kathua, District Udhampur, District Doda and District Ramban qualified for ST status in view of their cultural distinctiveness and vulnerable socio-economic conditions but were made to suffer. He further said that while the grant of ST status to Gaddis, Sippis earlier and now to 'Paharies' was praiseworthy but the inadvertent omission of Koli's who belonged to marginalized communities needed to be rectified .
Prominent among those who participated in the protest demonstration included Rajesh Padgotra, Sham Gorkha, Gagan Partap, Nirmal Kishore, Shankar Chib, Naresh Chib, Kailash Mohan, Udheyveer, Ashok Kumar, Jagdish Chander, Sanjay Kumar, Gouri Lal and others. |
