Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 30 Yuva Morcha activists on Wednesday stopped the official vehicle of Kerala LSGD Minister K M Shaji in the state capital and later blocked the autorickshaw he boarded, forcing him to walk for some distance before continuing to his official residence.
Shaji, a leader of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), was travelling from the Secretariat to his official residence in a luxury car when the BJP youth wing protesters suddenly blocked the vehicle near Vanross Junction.
He was travelling without a pilot or escort vehicle, sources said.
The protesters sat on the road in front of the vehicle, following which the minister got down and spoke to them.
Visuals aired by news channels showed the minister later getting into an autorickshaw.
The protesters, however, stopped the autorickshaw too.
The minister then got down and walked away along with a security officer who was accompanying him.
His official vehicle later reportedly took him to his residence here.
The incident happened amid heightened political tensions in the state following a black-flag protest against Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his recent visit to Kollam.
The Youth Congress workers had shown black flags to Shah’s convoy, after which the BJP and Yuva Morcha launched a series of protests against Chief Minister V D Satheesan and his Cabinet colleagues, accusing the state government of failing to provide adequate security to the union minister.
Yuva Morcha had also stopped the vehicles of other state ministers and staged black-flag protests at different places in the state following the Shah incident.
(PTI News)
