Gandhinagar/Patan/Mahesana:

After the death of retired Talati Bhanubhai Vankar (62), who succumbed in hospital last night following self immolation bid in Patan collector office premises on February 15, angry protestors targeted a ST bus and also blocked roads.

Vankar died in Apollo hospital near here last night after which his body was taken to civil hospital here for panel postmortem. His family members refused to accept his body until demands including the land for which he had committed self immolation was properly handed over to the family for which he had struggled.

Meanwhile in Unjha of Mahesana district an ST bus was attacked and its window panes were broken. The plying of ST buses from Unjha, the town where relatives of Vankar lived, had been suspended temporarily.

A relative of Vankar Manoj Meuwa however appealed people to not to protest in violent manner. He said that

Earlier MLA Jignesh Mewani, PAAS leader Hardik Patel and LoP Paresh Dhanani went to meet his relatives at Gandhinagar civil hospital.

Vankar, a native of Dudkha village in Sami Taluka of Patan district had immolated self to protest the alleged delay in regularization of encroached land of a local family.

He was put on life support system in Apollo hospital after sustaining 80% burn injuries.

Meanwhile, it is understood that some of the family members of the deceased would meet CM Vijay Rupani today.

A video of Vankar giving ultimatum of self immolation was also doing the rounds in social media.

RSS issues statement: condemn the incident

Death of social activist Sri Bhanubhai Vankar who belonged to scheduled caste is a
painful and a tragic event. Instead of getting relief from the pain he was suffering
from long over the alleged delay in allotment of land, he had to take this extreme
step. It is indeed shameful and unfortunate event.

RSS is standing with families who are suffering from this pain and we expect that the
authorities would look into this sensitive matter holistically and do the needful to
ensure the affected families get speedy justice.

It is also important for the government to make sure the civil authorities take speedy actions on the decision takens for the betterment of people. RSS also apeals to the people to maintain peace and tolerance. ( – Mukesh Malkan, Prant Sangh Chalak)

DeshGujarat