Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) members staged a novel protest by performing ‘final rites’ to motorcycles and gas cylinders here on Saturday to condemn the steep increase in fuel prices in the country.
They also rolled tyres using sticks and rode bicycles by wearing helmets to allege that motorised transport was becoming unaffordable because of the increase in prices of diesel and petrol.
J. Parthasarathy, Madurai district president of DYFI, who presided over the protest, said that the sharp increase in the prices were the result of deregulating government control and allowing companies to revise the prices whenever they wanted.
“It is unacceptable that the fuel price in India is constantly going up when the oil prices in international market is going down to unprecedented levels,” he said.
Blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and previous Congress-led governments for allowing private players in the oil sector, the protesters said that the increase in fuel prices had turned out to be a huge burden on families in the lower and middle income groups.
