Bangalore:
Thousands of students in Bangalore skipped classes to gather in Freedom Park in support of Anna Hazare, who was arrested in Delhi on Tuesday.
Mr Hazare wants to hold an indefinite hunger strike and demonstration in Delhi to protest a new bill introduced by the government that hopes to curb corruption. Mr Hazare and other activists believe that the bill is weak and designed to offer cover to politicians accused of corruption.
The Anna supporters in Bangalore included former Supreme Court judge Santosh N Hegde who retired just a few days ago as the Lokayukta or ombudsman of Karnataka.
Mr Hegde was also a part of the drafting committee for the Lokpal Bill. He was nominated by Anna. The government paired five non-elected representatives with an equal amount of ministers. Both sides were unable to resolve severe differences and produced two different versions of the Lokpal Bill. The government ignored Mr Hazare's request to circulate the activists' bill in parliament. In response, Mr Hazare announced a hunger strike and asked Indians to join him in a mass movement.
"Anna is fighting for us. We are here to support him," several students said. Mr Hegde reiterated that the government made a mistake by arresting Hazare .
He opined that if the Government came out with "open heart and open soul (willingness to look into their version), we (the civil society members) are ready to discussions again".
Capt G R Gopinath, founder of low cost airline Air Deccan, said team Anna's fight is not against any political party; it's against the system.
He said the Government, instead of arresting Hazare, should have opted to discuss the provisions enunciated by Team Anna in Parliament, adding, it should now show "grace" as it's not too late.
The protests in Bangalore have been widely headlined because of the participation of thousands of techies. Many used Twitter and Facebook to urge colleagues to join them at Freedom Park.
"We want to do our bit for the country", said Praful Patil, 23, a software engineer from Wipro who came with six of his colleagues taking compensatory days- off after working over the week-end, just so they could support Anna.
"This is once in a life-time opportunity to end corruption. It's a golden opportunity. If we lose it, we will not get another chance in 100 years," he said.