Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Wednesday blocked roads, highways and disrupted train services in several parts of the country demanding the scrapping of the Sethusamudram canal project in Tamil Nadu, that they said will destroy Ramar Sethu, believed to have been built by Lord Rama.

In the capital, VHP activists started their protest at around 8:00 am, blocking bridges across the Yamuna river and disrupting major traffic signals leading to traffic snarls in the morning rush hour.

The blockade ended at around 11:30 am, as vehicular movement gradually limped back to normal. No violence was reported in the city. Elsewhere in the country, the situation was equally bad.

Stir in B’lore
In Bangalore, the Hindutva hardliners hit the road and staged a rasta roko in different parts of the City.

The local unit of the Rameshwaram Sri Ramasethu Rakshana Vedike, backed by the Sangha parivar organisations including VHP and BJP, also blocked rail traffic at the Bangalore City and Yeshwantpur railway stations.

Activists staged a rasta roko on Old Madras Road, Banashankari Circle, Chandapura Circle on Hosur Road and five other places of the City.

There were some tense moments at the Bangalore City railway station when the demonstrators scuffled with policemen and RPF personnel. The protestors stopped two trains due to which the trains were delayed for nearly 10 minutes. The policemen with RPF drove away the agitators from the station premises.
In Haryana, the National Highway 1 was blocked at Karnal, leading to a massive traffic jam on one of the busiest roads in the country.

Police resorted to mild cane-charge at Chandigarh and adjoining Panchkula town to disperse VHP activists.
In Punjab’s industrial town of Phagwara, the Amritsar-Delhi highway was blocked and so also the rail track that connects to Delhi. Train services were disrupted in Jalandhar as well.

Mumbai hit
The blockade severely affected vehicular movement in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Agra, Jammu, Indore and Patna too.
Vehicular traffic was thrown out of gear across Orissa for more than three hours in the morning because of the VHP sponsored chhakka jam agitation.

Traffic on the important national highway number five passing through Bhubaneswar and linking Chennai with Kolkata ground to a halt as activists of VHP, Bajrang Dal and other Hindu organisations blocked the road for nearly three-and-a-half hours.

The VHP claims that the canal project, that will cut shipping time in the southern tip of India, would damage the Adam’s bridge or Ramar Sethu, which many Hindus claim was built by the monkey brigade to enable Lord Rama to reach Lanka to rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of the demon king Ravan.

Hindutva parties claim that US space agency NASA had the bridge in the Indian Ocean carbon dated as being 1.7 million years old.