Police on Saturday barged into the Varanasi branch of the Sarva Sewa Sangh, marking a takeover of the six-decade-old Gandhian institute that the government plans to demolish and which Gandhians from across the country had been trying to protect through a prolonged dharna and a legal battle.
Sources said that over 300 policemen arrived in the morning and began removing everything from the Sangh’s 10 buildings, from furniture to files and books.
They arrested Chandan Pal, president of the Sangh that is headquartered in Wardha, Maharashtra; Ram Dhiraj, head of the Sangh’s Varanasi branch; and six other Gandhian protesters.
Over 100 Gandhians from across the country had begun a sit-in four weeks ago at the Sangh’s gates, protesting the takeover plans, but the numbers have dwindled.
The protesters had sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who happens to be the local MP, during his Varanasi visit this month but were ignored.
“We warned them (Gandhians) not to interrupt us but they kept chanting anti-government slogans and provoked others to oppose us,” local reporters quoted a police officer as saying.
“Having no option, we arrested them and took them to Rajghat police station. We are waiting for orders from the district and railway administration. Maybe we will bulldoze the buildings here in keeping with an earlier order,” the officer told reporters.
The district administration had last month declared that the Gandhian institute stood on 14 acres of railway land. On June 27, the railways pasted demolition notices on the institute’s buildings.
Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court refused to entertain the institute’s pleas and asked it to approach the Varanasi district court.
Institute convener Arvind Anjum said in a statement in the afternoon: “The case was supposed to be heard in the district court on Friday following our injunction filed on Thursday, but it didn’t happen.
“Now it will be heardon July 28. Ignoring thejudicial process, a large number of forces are here at theinstitute and (have) informed us that they would level the area for some other constructions.”
Dhiraj, speaking to The Telegraph over the phone before his arrest, said: “Policemen and local administrative officials barged in and removed documents, books and other stuff from the residential and official buildings here.”
He added: “We had produced documents in the higher courts to prove that the land was bought from the railways in 1960 through the efforts of Vinoba Bhave and with the approval of then President Rajendra Prasad.
“But the Modi government is claiming after six decades that the property belongs to the railways. He (Modi) is vindictive against us.
“Initially, he wanted to hand over the Gandhi Vidya Sansthan, founded by Jayaprakash Narayan on the Sangh compound, to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), which is controlled by some RSS members. When we protested, he decided to capture the entire Sangh premises.”
Dhiraj alleged that “Modi wants to remove all the symbols of Gandhi from the country”.
Abhijit Dixit, regional director of the IGNCA, had confirmed to this newspaper that the central government-run institute was in the process of taking over the Gandhi Vidya Sansthan “to develop a library and encourage research on Gandhian ideology”.