Mahendergarh (Haryana): A youth who claimed he was frustrated over government's failure to give him a job and compensation for an injury allegedly threw a shoe towards Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda during a rally on Sunday .
However, the footwear hurled by 21-year-old Shakti Singh, who was seated behind the press photographers gallery, fell short by about 70 feet from where Hooda was addressing the public gathering at ITI grounds, about 150 km from Delhi. A senior police officer expressed ignorance about the incident while Hooda termed it as a handiwork of rival party activists.
Singh, a resident of a village in Baniyani in Hooda's home district Rohtak, was thrashed by villagers sitting next to him as he tried to run away after throwing the shoe.
He was later taken into custody by the police and detained for questioning.
Shakti Singh told PTI at the police station that he had suffered a bullet wound during a protest in the recent past and today he had taken the action (hurling the shoe) to lodge a protest for not getting compensation of Rs 10 lakh and a job promised to him by the state government.
District police chief Jagdish Nagar expressed ignorance over the shoe hurling incident and said according to his information some youths who indulged in a fight at the rally could have thrown the footwear. He denied that it was hurled towards Hooda. The rally was organised by ruling Congress legislator and Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Rao Dhan Singh.
The incident comes close on the heels of a similar incident in which a suspended head constable of J&K police flung a shoe towards J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah during a function on Independence Day.
A Delhi-based journalist initiated the trend when he tossed a shoe at then finance minister P Chidambaram in 2009 to protest inaction by the government in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases.
Meanwhile, a group of five women from Nava village in this district too were detained by police for allegedly showing black flags to the Chief minister during the rally to protest the government's alleged failure in taking proper action in a recent rape case and acquisition of land at meagre price. PTI
