Youth hurls shoe at Haryana CM
Inspired by the string of shoe-throwing protests in recent years, a Haryanvi youth took of his boot and hurled it towards the dais as chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was addressing a public meeting in the southern township of Mahendragarh on Sunday.
While Mr Hooda dismissed the culprit as an “anti-social element” obviously instigated by “rival politicians”, district police officials denied the incident completely insisting the minor skirmish at the start of the rally in Mahendergarh’s ITI Grounds was merely a consequence of an argument between a group of youngsters. Notwithstanding their claim, the cops took custody of both the abandoned footwear and its owner — 21-year-old Shakti Singh of Rohtak’s Baniyani village — who said he wanted to register his protest against the government’s failure to give him a job.
Badly battered from the thrashing he was got from angry supporters at the rally, Mr Singh told reporters at the police station that he had been promised a government job and Rs 10 lakhs in compensation for a bullet injury sustained during a past police firing incident. “None of the promises have been fulfilled,” he complained. While young Shakti Singh’s shoe fell more than 70 feet short of its target and chief minister Hooda wasn’t even aware until supporters explained the commotion in front of the stage, senior Congress leaders said the incident amounted to a serious lapse of security.
Haryana’s DGP intelligence P.V. Rathee had written letters warning Mahendragarh district commissioner, superintendent police and the local Congress legislators Rao Dhan Singh about the possibility of protests at Sunday’s rally.
The DGP had information that local politicians close to rival Indian National Lok Dal and certain disgruntled Congress leaders had made plans to disrupt the chief minister’s Mahendragarh rally during a mahapanchayat in Pali village on August 15.
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