Violence broke out on the first day of the 72-hour Jammu bandh to press for an AIIMS in the region as police resorted to lathicharge and lobbed teargas shells to disperse stone-pelting pro-bandh supporters outside the state BJP office here on Friday. [related-post] Significantly, the AIIMS Coordination Committee, comprising various political and social organisations including opposition National Conference, Congress and Panthers Party, had decided to go ahead with its three-day bandh call despite the announcement of separate AIIMS-like institutions for both Jammu and the Valley by Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Thursday. Nadda’s announcement was reiterated here by state Health Minister Choudhary Lal Singh who said that both Jammu and Valley will have similar AIIMS-like institutes with separate directors as their heads. However, these announcements failed to cut any ice with the agitating AIIMS Coordination Committee with its chairperson Abhinav Sharma accusing BJP of yet another betrayal of the people of Jammu region. He described the announcements as BJP’s attempts to derail the ongoing agitation for AIIMS. Lal Singh, in turn, accused the protesters of being least bothered about the interests of Jammuites. Meanwhile, except for Jammu city and its outskirts, besides Kathua, Udhampur, Ramnagar and Chenani where people observed near-total to partial bandh, the shops and other business establishments were open as usual in most parts of Jammu region. Trouble erupted in Jammu city when slogan-shouting pro-bandh supporters reached near the BJP office at Kachhi Chowani where police had blocked the road with barbed wire. As the protesters tried to remove the fence, police resisted, making the former resort to stone-pelting.
